


Songbirds and Bombshells

by BouncingKappa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, BAMF Bucky Barnes, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The First Avenger, Explicit Language, F/M, Medical Jargon, Medical Procedures, Mild Gore, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Romance, Slow Burn, Wartime Romance, Women in the Military, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BouncingKappa/pseuds/BouncingKappa
Summary: World War II brought all kinds of people together.  Bucky Barnes was a sharpshooter with no big plans for himself except to live through the war and reunite with his best friend, Steve Rogers.  But he hadn't planned on Nurse Sadie Reid, a stick of dynamite disguised by red lipstick.Falling in love in the middle of a war wasn't ideal, but it was the best they had.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 34





	1. Meetings and Marching Orders

A cloud of smoke created a haze in the entryway of Donovan's. Already the bar was packed to the gills with patrons, a mix of civilian and military alike. Drab green uniforms clashed against dark suits, white shirts, and floral print dresses. Dark wood paneled the walls, lined with the dings and dents from bar fights, bets gone awry, and years of loving use. Lazy piano music drifted from the back, carrying forward, barely audible over the din of the crowd.

Bucky Barnes stood in the doorway, a wide grin stretching across his face. After weeks of training and waiting in a shithole barrack in Camp Kilmer, he was back in Brooklyn where he belonged. Free for four days of leave before reporting to receive his orders, he straightened his tie and marched into the bar with purpose. In the grand scheme of things for days and nights was nothing and Bucky intended to soak up every second of his precious last hours in Brooklyn before shipping out to God-only-knew-where for God-only-knew-how-long to do God-only-knew-what. Determined not to let that show he cut his way through the crowd, looking for his company for the evening.

The grin on his face stretched wider, if possible. True to his word, Steve Rogers had managed to stretch his tiny figure out just enough to save an extra spot at the bar. A full pint of Guinness was already waiting, calling to Bucky like a siren to a sailor. Steve spotted him as he broke through the snarled knot of a crowd and he smiled broadly.

"Still haven't grown an inch, have you?" Bucky said by way of greeting as Steve got to his feet. Throwing pretense to the wind, Bucky pulled Steve into a bear hug, thumping him hard on the back.

"And you're still a jerk," replied Steve, repeating Bucky's actions.

"It's good to see you! How's life been treating you?" They separated and Bucky dropped onto a barstool.

"Same ole', same ole'," said Steve and he held up his pint glass to Bucky. Clinking the pints together, Bucky tipped his head to his best friend before taking a long draw of his beer. He stared at his pint with new appreciation, after going months without a good drink he now knew the full value of what he'd been missing out on. "How was Camp Kilmer?"

It was almost impossible not to hear the jealousy dripping from Steve's voice. Shifting uncomfortably in his stool, Bucky shrugged. "More tactical training, more mind-numbing lessons on map-reading, hand signals, language, customs. God awful food and not nearly enough pretty girls," he said and leaned back to watch a petite blonde cross the scarce open space, only to join her date for the evening.

Slowly, Steve nodded and stared pensively into his drink. Bucky fought the urge to roll his eyes. If brooding over the impossible were an art, Steve would have long perfected it by now. "Well it's better than kicking around here."

Now Bucky did roll his eyes. Dropping a firm hand on Steve's shoulder, he squeezed it. "Being one of the last few single guys in a city full of gorgeous women? I beg to differ my friend. Besides, I haven't seen you in months and all you wanna talk about is the shitty food at Camp Kilmer?"

Steven cracked the ghost of a smile and Bucky shook him by the shoulder, trying to imbue some cheer into him. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Steve. Both of them watched a couple of girls at a nearby table, gossiping over the tops of their glasses. One of them eyed Bucky and he flashed a winning smile. "Not even back five minutes and you're already lining up tomorrow's date."

Chuckling, Bucky watched as the young girl turned a brilliant shade of red and giggled wildly, turning to her friend. Deciding to put the charm on her friend and broker a way into conversation with both of them, he offered a smile for the other girl, only to be met by a harsh gaze. Shaking his head, he turned away and refocused his attention on Steve. "Not if her friend is giving us the evil eye. I can't go off and leave you to the wolves. Besides, she's not my type anyway."

Steve snorted in unamused laughter. "You have a type? Aside from beautiful and breathing?"

Bucky groaned and slapped his hands on the bar, drumming his palms on the lacquered surface. Pointing an accusatory finger at Steve, he grinned. "Yeah, you're a real riot, Rogers. One of these days I'm gonna be the one to take you out back and beat you up."

His cheek did the trick and Steve laughed, finally relaxing. They'd been this way since Bucky could remember. At some point in their relationship it became obvious that Bucky had raced ahead, but he'd been determined to never leave Steve behind. And so they were the way they were, Steve indulged in self-deprecating comments and Bucky verbally knocked sense into him.

"Hey, I wasn't the one with a different girl every week in high school."

"It wasn't every week. Besides, the odds are about to stack way in your favor."

"You know what I think?" Said Steve after he swallowed the last of his pint and slid the empty glass across the bar, motioning to the bartender for two more. "I think one of these days you're going to meet a girl you can't charm and you're going to fall hook, line, and sinker for her."

Bucky tossed his head back and laughed. "You're so full of it," he said.

But Steve could not be dissuaded. "Just you wait, she's gonna strike you like lightning."

For a few minutes everything in the world was right. Bucky could pretend that he wasn't going to receive his orders any day now. For just a few days he could act like going to war didn't terrify him to no end. Just for now he could spend the night getting drunk with his best friend, reliving memories and making up for lost time.

"How about you meet Mrs. Steve Rogers first and show me how it's done."

Steve laughed and shook his head. "Speaking of women that probably don't exist."

The bartender brought over two fresh pints and Bucky lifted his aloft. "Well, then, I propose a toast to the non-existent future Mrs. Rogers and Barnes."

They clinked their glasses and descended into the night's madness.

X X X

Three days later, Bucky woke with a pounding head. He smelled like he'd bathed in Irish whiskey and cigarette smoke, an unfortunate byproduct of being dragged to one of the largest dance halls in the city. Last night's date, Holly, wanted to meet up with her other friends, all of whom had managed to wrangle soldiers of their own for the evening. The end result found Bucky sitting with a group of enlisteds with their heads shoved where the sun didn't shine, talking tall about all the Nazis they were going to kill, right up to Hitler's front door. Given that his date had unceremoniously dumped him for her giggling friends, Bucky found his only other recourse was to get rip-roaring drunk and stumble home at an ungodly hour.

Groaning, he rolled over in bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. Outside of his half-open window, he could hear the sounds of the city. New York would always be bustling, no matter the time or season. Bucky lay still for several minutes, wondering how long it would be before he was back in Brooklyn for good. He checked the time on his wrist-watch, he had just enough time to shower up and eat before reporting to the New York Port of Embarkation for a final physical and his orders.

"Hey!" A voice from the doorway alerted Bucky that he was not alone.

Steve stood there, straightening his wide tie.

"What?" He groaned.

"Get up, I'll buy lunch."

The prospect of free food was enough to get Bucky up and moving. A hot shower did wonders to assuage his pounding headache. Bucky stood under the running water for a long time. It could be several months until his next shower.

For days now Bucky had spent his time trying to enjoy the little luxuries of life. At the same time he found himself agonizing over what he would be giving up. No more hot showers, no more good food, no more bed. These things he could do without. But the prospect of terrible coffee and no beautiful women for months on end? Now that was his idea of miserable.

Twenty minutes later, Bucky found himself staring at the mirror over his small dresser in his small apartment. Grimacing, he pulled at the collar of his drab olive shirt. He was required to wear his Class A's only to be forced to strip down for his final exam and then dress back up again to receive his orders. The entire system seemed grossly inefficient. Tilting his head to the side, Bucky examined his reflection. Loathe as he was to admit it, the uniform made him look good, respectable even. He stood a little straighter in his jacket and adjusted the belt that made his shoulders look broader than they actually were.

"Wow, you almost look like an upstanding citizen," remarked Steve from the doorway of Bucky's room. He was agitated, Bucky didn't even have to turn around to look at Steve to know. Jealousy practically permeated the air and continued to forge and even large chasm between them. On the one or two occasions where Bucky imagined what could possibly drive a wedge in their friendship, he always figured it would be a woman or a job that would take one of them away from Brooklyn. Never in a hundred years did Bucky imagine that the Goddamn army would be the culprit of their current predicament.

"Almost," noted Bucky.

He picked up his peaked cap and set it atop his head, straight as an arrow. It looked all wrong, too respectable. Carefully he tilted it off to the side, giving him a nice devil-may-care aura.

"Come on Sarge, let's go get something to eat before you fall in love with your own reflection."

Two hours later, Bucky strode into the large medical pavilion at the NYPOE. Tomorrow morning he would return here for a completely different reason. In the distance he could already see the massive troopships awaiting the thousands of soldiers in New York. Many of them were luxury cruise liners, repainted and repurposed for the cheerful job of carrying America's finest to war. In the morning he would be on one of those ships, headed to battle and praying to God that the guy in the foxhole next to him wasn't a total idiot.

But that was tomorrow.

"Name?" Bucky's legs had carried him to the initial check-in point without his realizing it.

"James Barnes." Bucky used his real name so seldom it sounded almost foreign on his tongue.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, report to waiting area five for your medical exam. A nurse will give you further instruction after." Bucky nodded stiffly to the attendant and he walked off, down a main thoroughfare to waiting area five.

Bucky had never been on a ranch, but he imagined a cattle drive had to be similar to the way the army herded men from point A to point B. Several rows of chairs were contained in his designated waiting area, the seats sporadically filled with other enlisted men. He didn't even want to know how old some of them were, they looked like kids in his eyes. Not that twenty-six was that old, there was still a lot of living he wanted to do.

Ahead of the waiting area he could see several rolling partitions had been linked together, forming a continuous row of small private examination spaces. A small desk sat outside each space, stacked high with charts, one for each soldier. Bucky's eyes wandered to the individuals manning each station. A lazy smile tugged at his lips.

Nurses.

God's gift to soldiers everywhere.

He tried to get a good look at the nurses performing examinations in his area. A few blondes milled about the area, but none of them caught his eye. Bucky had never been one for blondes.

"Goddamn, get a load of her," muttered a guy next to him.

"Huh?" Asked Bucky stupidly.

"The blonde right over there." The guy pointed to a petite nurse with carefully pinned blonde curls, cherry red lips and a perfect hourglass shape. "What a knockout. If I was her man I'd never let her out of my sight."

But Bucky wasn't even paying attention to the blonde. His eyes slipped to the right and his mouth dropped open by a tiny fraction. The blonde was a distant memory in comparison to her companion. Bucky had always been partial to brunettes and this nurse was no exception to the rule. From a distance Bucky drank in the woman's rich chocolate brown hair, pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck, perfectly curled beneath her pristine white cap. She too wore bright red lipstick, highlighting her full bottom lip. Perhaps her cheekbones were a fraction high and her chin too stubborn for true beauty, but Buck would be damned if he wasn't mesmerized by her brilliant grey eyes.

"Her friend's not so bad either," he said slowly.

The brunette nurse smiled at something her blonde friend said and Bucky's heart started thudding hard in his chest. "Jesus Christ, why don't they put their pictures in the brochures? Men would be falling all over themselves to join up."

"No kidding."

X X X

"So what happened after that?" Betty Parsons asked, hanging on the every word of her companion Evelyn Thompson.

"Oh, he put on the big song and dance about leaving for war without a sweetheart of his own. I let him go on for a couple more dances and got another sidecar out of the deal before I split to meet up with you again." Betty giggled wildly, sending a few sprays of her blonde curls everywhere.

"You're awful, don't you think so, Sadie?"

"Hmm?" Sadie Reid asked, tearing her full attention from the stack of charts she'd yet to get through. With Betty and Evelyn gossiping at the station next to hers it was almost impossible to concentrate. Already the afternoon as growing late and a fresh wave of soldiers were awaiting their medical exams and vaccinations before receiving their orders to ship out.

"Last night? Evelyn's impromptu date?"

Sadie snorted in unattractive laughter. When did Evelyn not have a date? Her perfectly curled red hair and perfect hourglass frame attracted men like a beacon. "Well, he probably deserved it," she said, knowing from experience that Evelyn also tended to attract a certain brand of idiot.

"Awh Sade you're just saying that. He was pretty cute though," said Evelyn and shrugged.

"I'm sure you'll find a better replacement tonight," she said, prompting another round of wicked laughter from her friends. A vague smile tugged at her lips. "At least do the next one a favor and buy your own drinks."

Sadie raised a hand to check that her white nurses' hat was still pinned securely in place. She would have loved for nothing more than to spend the remainder of the fine afternoon outside, soaking the warm afternoon. But relaxation would have to wait. Instead she stuck her hand in the pocket of her white dress and rubbed her thumb over the medal of Saint Agatha. Her father had given her the silver medallion when she'd been accepted to nursing school.

Betty sorted her charts and turned the conversation to the World Fair tonight. Betty and Evelyn were gravely concerned about whether they should wear their hair up or down. Sadie gave her opinions when necessary before re-directing their attention to work. Evelyn scuttled back to her station to begin her next round of exams. Each man needed a simple physical and any vaccines he hadn't already received. Betty let out an exaggerated sigh, but Sadie grabbed the first of her charts, happy to at least have a full afternoon of work to dive into.

"Did you know I saw in the papers that Howard Stark is going to be putting on an exhibition tonight," said Betty. Sadie cast a sideways glance to her friend. "He's so handsome in all his pictures in the paper."

"Well, maybe if we get finished in time we'll be able to make it before Evie drags us to the Carriage Club or wherever she thinks her prospects are best."

"Yours too, you know it wouldn't kill you to go out with someone too."

Sadie chuckled. "You know how I feel about dating soldiers."

"I know, I know you've said it a hundred times. You didn't join the army to end up an army wife."

Sadie looked out at the men sitting in several rows of chairs at their designated check-in area. Each one of them was dressed down to their drab green slacks and white undershirts, dog tags shining on their chests. The strings of Sadie's heart pulled as she evaluated their faces. They were all so young, many of them younger than her own tender twenty-three years. Pursing her lips, she pushed the thought from her mind and looked down at the name on her first file.

"Hopkins, Roger!" She called out.

A young man stood, his back ramrod straight. Sadie stared at the picture on the file to compare, examining his coif of curly black hair and shining brown eyes. Opening his chart, she felt her chest deflate. He was only nineteen. "If you don't mind."

"Of course not, ma'am," he said and strode forward, chest thrown out. Sadie found that she often liked the youngest recruits the best. Usually they were too scared or too close to their mothers to disrespect the nurses the way the older non-commissioned officers did. Private Roger Hopkins walked behind the rolling dividers that joined up to form the small examination space that Sadie used to get through each physical.

"Have a seat Mr. Hopkins," she gestured to the examination table. Private Hopkins obliged her request, thus beginning another long afternoon.

By the time four in the afternoon rolled around, Sadie was in desperate need of either a cup of coffee or a drink, she couldn't exactly tell which. Her back was stiff from standing for so long and her feet ached in the white shoes given to the nursing staff. If she had to endure another cheeky comment about how if all the nurses looked like her then war wasn't so bad, Sadie was going to pull her hair out. Wearily, she glanced at the next file. Another Sergeant.

"Barnes, James!"

Nobody stood immediately, piquing Sadie's attention and irritation.

"Barnes! James!" She shouted over the din of the pavilion.

At length a young man lifted his chin. His eyes found her and almost immediately the corner of his mouth turned up in a lopsided grin, revealing straight white teeth. Rising to his feet, Sadie's annoyance only grew as he walked—no, swaggered—over to her, taking his sweet time. A too-innocent light gleamed in his blue eyes, set over devastating cheekbones. Oh, he was handsome alright, thought Sadie. And he knew it. Confidence bordering on arrogance practically exuded from him, as he shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled up to Sadie, not even bothering to hide the way his eyes took a casual flick from the top of her head down to her feet and back.

"Nurse," he said, practically dripping charm all over the floor.

It took every ounce of Sadie's considerable willpower to keep from rolling her grey eyes. As the young sergeant waltzed past Sadie into the private exam area she actually heard Betty sigh. Whipping around, Sadie found her friend holding a chart against her chest watching Sergeant Barnes with rapt attention. Now Sadie did roll her eyes, beyond unamused.

"I can't believe I joined the army for this," she muttered under her breath. Steeling herself for the exam to come, Sadie flipped open the chart and began reading the information. James Buchanan Barnes, read the top line of his chart. Twenty-six years old, 5' 11", 159 pounds, finished basic training with distinction, peak physical condition, these were all phrases Sadie had seen before pertaining to men just like Sergeant Barnes. "Well Sergeant Barnes, it looks like this is your last stop before picking up your shipping orders."

Sadie lifted her head to look at Sergeant Barnes, only to find him sitting on the examination table. He rest his forearms on his elbows and dropped his head, nodding in an exaggerated sort of fashion.

"That's what they tell me." One of Sadie's eyebrows slipped up her forehead, prompting another grin from Sergeant Barnes. "You're pretty good at that, you know. What's your name?"

"You can call me Nurse Reid, sit up straight, please."

Sergeant Barnes followed her command, straightening the length of his spine and folding his arms over his chest. Sadie reached for the thermometer she'd sterilized between soldiers. "Reid is your first name?

Irritation prickled just beneath the surface of Sadie's skin. If he were anymore slick, he'd slide right off the exam table. "Reid is my last name," she said, wishing immediately that she hadn't given him the ammunition. "Open your mouth."

Sergeant Barnes waggled his eyebrows in a humorous way but complied, opening wide for her. Under his tongue the thermometer went. Even when the thermometer kept him from speaking, Sadie could see the humor dancing in his wicked blue eyes. Absently, she wondered how many hearts he'd broken with those baby blues. The thermometer came out and he relaxed again.

"Ninety seven," she said to herself, marking it down on his chart.

"So, Nurse Reid, take pity on a poor guy and tell me where you're from? I know that accent doesn't hail from New York."

Sadie felt the flush creep up the back of her neck. No matter how hard she tried, it was almost impossible to hide the slight drawl that tugged the back end of her words. For most of her life, Sadie hadn't been bothered by her slow and low southern accent, betraying her Arkansas roots. Her exposure to the rest of the world through nursing school and then the army had changed that. Sadie wasn't ashamed of where she was from, but she certainly didn't want to hear the country girl jokes from a Brooklyn boy.

Besides, she'd made it her firm policy to keep distance between herself and military men. The realities of war were inevitable. The chances were painfully high that many of the men she'd already examined weren't going to make it out alive. Sadie wasn't interested in having her heart torn in two all over again by getting too close. No matter how charming or attractive those soldiers could be.

"You've got forty-nine other guesses, I think you can figure it out," said Sadie. She put the caps of her stethoscope in her ears and pressed the disk against the Sergeant's firm chest. Through the amplifier, she could hear the steady beat of his heart.

"I won't make fun, if that's what you're thinking. I'm actually a pretty nice guy."

Sadie lifted her gaze to find him looking right at her, unflinching. "I never said you weren't, Sergeant Barnes."

"Bucky," he intervened. "Everyone calls me Bucky."

A play on his middle name, Sadie was sure. She turned the name over in her head while she jotted down notes and then reached for the blood pressure cuff. Bucky. Sadie decided that the name suited the Sergeant well, living up to his blatantly mischievous nature. Bucky held his arm out and Sadie busied herself with his blood pressure and then his vaccination chart.

"Well it looks like you're getting off easy, Sergeant. You've already had your vaccinations for typhoid, malaria, and cholera. All you need is a tetanus shot and fortunately for you, I can put that one in your arm."

Bucky slumped in visible relief, nearly worming a smile from Sadie. "Thank God. You have no idea how embarrassing it is to have to drop your pants in front of a pretty girl."

And there it was, thought Sadie. It took Bucky longer than most to get around to the flirting. "Flattery will get you nowhere Sergeant."

"Bucky," he corrected her. "And who said anything about flattery? That's the honest truth. You are very pretty and I'm really glad I don't have to bare my assets if you catch my drift."

Sadie couldn't help it. She coughed over her laugh. Bucky gave her a broad smile, showing off as many of his white teeth as he could. "Well, that makes two of us."

"Georgia, you've got to be from Georgia."

Sadie ignored him and prepared his tetanus shot. Bucky didn't need her instruction. Instead he rolled his shirt sleeve off, all-too pleased to show off his muscular arm. A familiar pattern set back in. Sterilize. Dry. Stick. Band-Aid.

"Not Georgia," she replied after she'd finished. "But it was a good guess. Alright Sergeant Barnes, you're ready to pick up your orders."

The atmosphere changed in an instant. Orders. A small, innocuous seeming word that meant almost nothing before Pearl Harbor now had the power to strike fear into the heart of the hardiest man. Sadie thought to her own orders, received yesterday. She was shipping out in the morning on the Queen Victoria as a member of the 80th Field Hospital, First Clearing Platoon, attached to the 107th Infantry Division. Her ship sailed for Sicily and then onto the mainland. A shiver slipped down the length of her spine, who knew what horrors awaited her.

Bucky slid off the table to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I guess it's that time, isn't it."

For the first time all day, Sadie looked one of her patients directly in the eye. Bucky gazed back, his blue eyes softening. It was a shame, she thought. He really was a very handsome man, the sort of handsome that got better women than her into trouble. She held a hand out to him, which he took, grasping firmly. Warm and firm, his handshake was the kind that inspired confidence. In fact, all of him inspired confidence and Sadie found herself thinking that maybe he'd be one of the lucky ones.

"Good luck, Sergeant."

"Like I said before, it's Bucky. It's been a pleasure, Nurse Reid."

With a cordial nod of his head, Sergeant Barnes walked out of the exam area. Sadie didn't see him turn back and look after her one more time.


	2. Candied Ginger and Poker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Marvel but I do own Sadie and her friends!

Sadie brushed her hands over her dark olive wool skirt. The sun beat oppressively over the NYPOE as she waited in line with Betty and Evelyn to board the Queen Victoria. The cup of coffee she'd had before taking the subway from the hotel to the port was was beginning to wear thin and she had a long day ahead. Beads of sweat began to gather at the small of her back, and she squinted her eyes against the harsh morning.

"Whoever thought of having us board this ship at seven in the morning ought to be shot," muttered Betty under her breath. She was nursing what Sadie supposed was a spectacular hangover after spending too much time with a rakish Airborne Captain and two too many bottles of champagne. It hadn't surprised Sadie in the least when Betty didn't come back to their room, leaving Evelyn to speculate just how far the brazen blonde would go.

"Well, if they're coming on board with us their chances are pretty good," muttered Sadie.

"Don't be such a downer," said Evelyn directly behind her. Sadie didn't need to turn around to know that her nursing school classmate was fiddling nervously with the ends of her curls. All morning long Sadie and Betty had been forced to endure Evelyn's constant worrying about the color of her flaming red hair clashing with their dark olive Class A uniforms. Sadie hadn't understood Evelyn's fuss. After all, she looked exactly like every other nurse boarding the ship, including the dozen or so other redheads.

"Sorry," mumbled Sadie.

"Sade's not entirely wrong, you know," said Betty over her shoulder. "Captain Spears told me last night that Hitler's put a high price on the troop ships headed to Italy and England."

"Oh really?" Asked Evelyn, only half-interested. "What else did he tell you during pillow talk?"

The beet red blush on Betty's cheeks almost matched her red lip stick. "I already told you Evie, we were just dancing."

Sadie tried and failed to hide her smirk. "I had no idea that the clubs and dance halls stayed open until five in the morning."

"Oh not you too," said Betty disparagingly. Sadie raised her eyebrows a couple of times, only further riling Betty up. The bickering continued on for several more minutes, leading Betty and Evelyn to snipe at each other over who took more time to get ready and whether they'd actually end up marrying any of the officers they'd enjoyed cavorting around with for the last few weeks. Sadie kept her gaze forward, listening to their antics and enjoying their general company.

Sadie still remembered meeting Evelyn Lewis and Betty Carnahan during their first week of nursing school. The three of them were among the few out-of-town contingent at Vanderbilt, assigned to live on the same floor. Later they would share a suite together, like they shared many of their young adult life experiences together. As different as night and day, Sadie sometimes marveled that they managed to make their friendships work. But perhaps it was their differences that made them so well suited for one another. After all, fearless and brazen Betty wouldn't have a head on her shoulders without her sensible Sadie who would never have come out of her shell without her extroverted and unfailingly kind Evelyn.

Betty and Evelyn had been with Sadie when they heard about Pearl Harbor. They'd sat up with her all night after the phone call from her Aunt Jeanette to tell Sadie about her father. It had been the three of them who decided to join the Army Nursing Corps after graduation. Sadie's eyes darted between Betty and Evelyn. They'd managed to stay together through school and enlistment and training. Now they were all part of the 80th Field Hospital for however long it took.

"Good heavens do you think this could go any slower?" Betty wondered, standing on the tips of her toes to get a better look at the glacial progression of the crowd.

"It's the evacuation and base hospital nurses," said another woman ahead of them. Sadie braced her hands on Betty's shoulders and rose up to her toes, getting a better look at the women now marching up the gangplank. The nurses that would go to the base and evacuation hospitals were certainly expecting an entirely different experience than the field nurses. Lugging suitcases, makeup bags, and purses along with their standard issue gear, they looked more like similarly dressed travelers.

"Someone did tell them this isn't a cruise ship anymore, right?" Asked Sadie, earning sniggers from her friends.

"Do you think they have evening gowns packed away in there?" Evelyn wondered. They watched as a particularly ungainly woman struggled to haul her suitcase over the lip of the ship that attached to the gangplank. Finally, the officer supervising their check-in had to help her. Sadie laughed along with Betty and Evelyn. They amused themselves with their jokes for a while longer, slowly moving up the line.

"Hey, Sade! Tell me more about that handsome Sergeant from yesterday afternoon, he had his physical with you." Betty's question caught Sadie off guard. Pausing, she tried to recall the dozens of men that sat on her exam table. There were a number of men she would have qualified as good-looking, but only a handful of them were truly handsome.

Rubbing the back of her neck, she shot Betty a look of long-suffering. "Betty, I saw a lot of men yesterday. You're going to have to be more specific."

Betty's cherry lips broadened into a smile, excited that Sadie was willing to play her game. "It was late in the afternoon, one of the last guys you saw. He was tall, brown hair, blue eyes, he had this sort of swing in his step."

The name bloomed into Sadie's head without her realizing it. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, one of the few memorable faces and names of her entire day. "You mean the one I had to call twice?"

Betty snapped her fingers in recognition. "Yeah, that's the one! What was his name?"

The field nurses began boarding, they shuffled forward at a faster clip now. "Sergeant James Barnes," said Sadie.

She hitched the strap of her musette bag higher up on her shoulders and readjusted the other bag that hung at her hip. The canteen attached to her musette bag rattled with each step she took. All of the gear in her bags was beginning to grow heavy, but it was nowhere near the weight she'd be carrying in Italy.

"What a great name," said Evelyn, pushing herself into the conversation. "Did you like him?"

"What's there to like?" Sadie asked rhetorically. "I literally only met the man for less than ten minutes."

"It only takes seven seconds to make a good first impression," said Betty knowledgeably. They surged forward again, only a few nurses were ahead of them to board the gangplank.

"Right, and in those seven seconds he ignored my first summons, swaggered over to the exam station like owned the place, did a blatant once-over, and called me nurse," she imitated his slick tone to the delight of her friends. "Not what I would call a winning start."

"Sounds like my kind of guy," said Evelyn with a rakish grin.

Sadie chuckled. "Then you can have him if ever gets a battlefield commission."

"Right," muttered Betty. "No fraternizing with the enlisteds, a rule I both greatly admire and despise."

Sadie's feet hit the gangplank at the same time as Betty. The two women stopped and stared at each other for a second. Betty's hazel eyes flashed with fear and she swallowed hard. Sadie placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You first."

And so Sadie took the lead, as she had in nursing school and in training. It was Sadie's idea to join the army and it had been her crazy idea to join the front lines with a field hospital. Walking up the length of the gangplank, Sadie drank in the sheer size of the operation. Up close the Queen Victoria was a behemoth, large enough to hold 15,000 troops and she would be packed to the gills for her voyage to Sicily. Near the top, Sadie was able to pause long enough to look around. The sight took the air right out of her lungs.

The entire port was literally packed. Behind the dwindling line of nurses, Sadie saw an ocean of men dressed in the same olive drab. The tips of their rifles caught the morning sun, a few thousand of them, coming on in waves. Her commanding officer, First Lieutenant Ruth Bettany, hadn't been kidding when she told her nurses that it would take an entire day and night to get every last man aboard. Crowds of civilians would pack the docks the next morning when the Victoria finally shipped out

"Have you ever seen anything like it in your whole life?" Whispered Evelyn, reaching out and clutching Sadie's hand.

"No," replied Sadie, drinking in the complete magnificence in scale and organization.

Then, it was her turn. "Name?"

"Second Lieutenant Sarah Grace Reid," said Sadie, standing straight at attention.

The officer's assistant rifled around in a long wooden box until he located a small white card which the officer then passed to Sadie. It was printed with her full name, rank, and bunk assignment. "You will follow Second Lieutenant Hampton to your quarters," said the officer, pointing to another man waiting with a small grouping of field nurses.

Sadie nodded and looked down once. A few inches separated the gangplank from the ship itself. Rationally, she knew it was a miniscule distance but at the moment it felt like a chasm. Swallowing, Sadie crossed the canyon that separated her from the life she knew, plunging her into an entire new world. Betty and Evelyn followed along, uncharacteristically silent.

X X X

Connie had been determined to see Bucky off and no amount of his pleading would persuade her otherwise. She'd spent much of the night preening over his uniform and taking extreme care to make sure that every woman at the Copacabana could see that he was all hers. Bucky went along with it, partly because he found Connie's company amusing and partly because she was gorgeous and up for a good time. After all, Bucky wasn't dead. He was about to go off to war and if Connie was willing to let the good time continue as long as possible then he wouldn't say no. So they'd gone dancing with her friend, Bonnie, and then for a walk through Times Square and then spent far too long saying goodbye at her front door. just when Bucky thought she would invite him in, Bonnie opened the door, clearly grouchy that her night hadn't gone nearly as well.

Instead, Connie tucked her handkerchief in one of his pockets and told him to look for her at the docks. Bucky took it in stride and let her kiss him within an inch of his life. He didn't have the heart to tell Connie that there was only one person living that he wanted to see at those docks and he wasn't going to be there.

Wherever Steve had ended up after the Exposition, Bucky didn't know. But Bucky did know that he couldn't bring himself to ask Steve to come say good bye. Forcing his best friend to come down to the docks to see off an entire ship of soldiers all while dying to be one himself didn't sit right with Bucky. It was better that way anyway, Bucky told himself. He hated goodbyes and especially hated dragging them out. So, Bucky woke up, went and had a hot breakfast at his favorite spot in city, took his last hot shower, and reported to the NYPOE alone.

This didn't bother him much until he was actually aboard the Queen Victoria, crowding on the top deck with his fellow soldiers. Men clambered towards the rails, determined to pick out the faces of their loved ones in the throng of civilians who came to watch the ship sail off. Bucky joined them, unwilling to spend anymore time in the main hold than he had to. He found a good spot on the rail and watched the crowd, writhing with movement, a living thing all its own.

Two hands came down hard on his shoulders, nearly scaring Bucky out of his skin.

"Sergeant Barnes!" Crowed a familiar voice. Turning his head, he watched as Sergeant Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan. "Damn good to see you!"

Bucky grinned and wrung Dum Dum's hand. "You too, come to catch the spectacle?"

Dum Dum laughed and shoved his way up against the railing right next to him. "I keep waiting for someone come break a bottle of champagne over the hull to ship us off in style," he joked.

"Well, it wouldn't be the army if they weren't indulging in the fanfare," said Bucky. Absently, he found himself scanning the crowd, looking for a face that wasn't there. He wondered what Steve was doing. Did his most recent attempt to join up turn out a success? Or was he sulking at one of his favorite haunts?

"Looking for your girl?" Dum Dum asked.

"Nope," said Bucky, popping the 'p.' He knew Connie was somewhere out there, but she wasn't his girl. She'd been distracting enough last night, but that was all she really was. Even then, Bucky found his eye wandering along the crowd last night. Once he swore he'd even seen the pretty nurse from his medical exam, Nurse Reid.

"Good thing, too many of these young bucks make too much of leaving their girls behind," remarked Dum Dum. The man dug into one of the large pockets on the front of his field jacket and produced a pack of cigarettes. Dum Dum popped one in his mouth and lit it, letting the smoke sit precariously between his lips. "Women cloud the mind."

Bucky laughed in earnest. "Can't argue with that."

The ship began to pull away from the dock. The crowd below broke into tumultuous cheering. "Cheering us as we go off to war. Because that's not morbid at all."

"Glad to see your sense of humor hasn't changed," said Bucky. Dum Dum blew out a cloud of smoke, resting his forearms on the railing. The Queen began pulling further and further away from the dock, turning out towards the bay and then to the Atlantic.

"Always happy to serve," he replied, tilting his bowler hat towards Bucky.

That hat would have been recognizable anywhere. Bucky met Dum Dum during basic training and ended up excelling together. That was how they both ended up in F Company of the 107th, promoted to Sergeant and given command of rifle squads in separate platoons.

The men fell silent, watching the city grow smaller and smaller. "You're from here, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

Bucky's throat closed up. He knew Brooklyn like the back of his hand. Every good memory, every heartbreak, every joy, every sorrow, it all took place in the city of his birth. He rubbed his face with one of his hands. Bucky remembered running down the streets with Steve, playing baseball in the alleys and poking his face in the windows of the shops. He'd gotten into his first fight only blocks away from his elementary school and saved Steve from countless beatings in those streets. It was where Bucky had his first kiss, where he'd gone on his first date and lost his virginity. Bucky and Steve drank their first beers, got their first jobs, and finished high school together in Brooklyn. It was his home, the one place on earth he could always count on to never change.

"You'll see it again," said Dum Dum, clapping him on the shoulder.

"God, I hope so."

"Alright, enough with the sentimental bullshit, I hear they're serving meals round-the-clock on this sardine can."

Bucky's eyes lingered on the New York skyline for a moment longer before tore them away and followed his friend back into the depths of the ship. He had no idea if or when he'd seen Brooklyn again, but he would do everything in his power to make it happen as soon as possible.

X X X

Three days passed, though they felt like years to Bucky. If all war was hell, then surely troopships were the unceremonious gateway. The ship had been completely gutted, allowing for bunks to be erected rising five high, leaving an aisle between the rows so narrow a man couldn't even walk straight forward wearing all of his gear. Men had been assigned two to a bunk, forcing them to take shifts sleeping in the sad excuse for a bed and sleeping on the deck. Bucky's bunkmate was another guy from F Company in the second rifle squad of first platoon. They hardly saw each other except when the weather took a nasty turn.

Currently every man was crammed into the bowels of the ship, riding out an Atlantic storm. Many of the other soldiers were suffering from the effects of seasickness, laid out in hallways and cabins and every other place they could curl up and wait for the storm to pass. The Queen tossed them back and forth, bobbing in the enormous waves like a she was nothing more than a child's toy sailboat. Those men who weren't in the throes of seasickness were doing the only other thing they could to pass the time: gamble.

Bucky had managed to keep his guts together, but only just. To help keep his mind off the uncomfortable rolling of his stomach he managed to set up a pretty decent poker game with Dum Dum and three other men from the third platoon of F Company: Private Dennis Bluthe, Private Earnest Gannis, and Corporal John Nixon. They didn't play for much more than bragging rights and the few dollars they laid down on their hands, but that was just fine by Bucky.

They took up a large portion of Corporal Nixon's bunk, laying the cards out as best as they could as the ship rocked back and forth. Bucky had his legs stretched out and the top few couple buttons of his shirt undone. A light sheen of sweat covered his forehead and the back of his neck.

"Jesus Christ this place is worse than a swamp," complained Dum Dum, wiping the back of his neck.

Dum Dum wasn't wrong.

"Smells about as good as one too," said Private Bluthe. He dealt the latest hand. "And I'm from the bayou, I'd know."

Bucky took a look at his five cards. His thought took a turn for the non-sequitur as he wondered whether Nurse Reid was from Louisiana. He couldn't exactly remember her accent clearly, but he remembered enjoying the way she drew her vowel out. It was foreign and soothing, exactly the way he expected all southern women spoke. Not that it mattered much, it wasn't like he would ever see her again.

"Bucky, the bet's to you," Dum Dum interrupted his train of thought.

Coming to, Bucky took a look at his hand and worked to keep his face perfectly neutral. As far as bad hands went he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Tossing in just enough to cover the blind, Bucky let the game move forward.

From a few bunks down the tell-tale sound of vomiting could be heard, followed by the groans from surrounding soldiers.

"It'll be a miracle if we make it to Italy without catching some miserable disease down here," complained Private Gannis. Bucky privately agreed with him.

He had just opened his mouth to speak when the ship pitched hard to one side. Bucky and Dum Dum had just enough time to grasp the railing of the bunks next to them. Dum Dum's head still hit one of the support bars and his colorful cursing filled the air. Corporal Nixon's entire body flew forward, launching across the narrow aisle. The men across from him scattered to the side and he slammed into the bunk across from him. A sickening crack could be heard, even above the shouting. Bucky's stomach turned, threatening to upend all over the already disgusting floor.

"Shit!"

"Nix, you okay?" Nixon groaned in pain and as he came up Bucky could see he'd bloodied his mouth with a badly split lip. Swiftly, Bucky swallowed his seasickness and rose to his feet, darting to support the Corporal to his feet.

"Damnit!" Nixon swore as he tried to put his weight on his left foot. "I think it's broken. Shit, shit, I think it's broken!" He howled and hopped on his right foot, trying to get a better grasp on Bucky. Dum Dum lurched forward, pulling Nixon's other arm over his shoulder. Blood trickled from a nasty cut on his forehead, working its way down towards his brow.

"You're gonna be fine, Nix," muttered Bucky as he straightened and kept Nixon's arm taut over his shoulder. "Come on, you both need to get to the sickbay."

X X X

Sadie received a care package from her mother and her Aunt Jeanette shortly before departing for Europe. The box contained loving letters, pictures, a Saint Christopher's medal, and enough candied ginger to get her through the entire war. The ginger, apart from being one of Sadie's favorite sweets, was apparently supposed to help her combat seasickness. Norma Reid, Sadie's mother, was a very firm believer in homeopathic remedies. 'Country medicine,' as she preferred to call it, was usually comprised of Norma's belief in old wives' tales. From a very early age, Sadie could remember her doctor father teasing her mother about her home remedies.

But, after three days on the Queen Victoria, Sadie would never question country medicine ever again. To appease her guilt at leaving her mother and aunt behind, Sadie shoved the whole lot of candied ginger into her musette bag. At first she'd sucked on it as a reminder of home. But as the hours wore on, Sadie found herself reaching for a piece every time her stomach started to turn. To her great disbelief and immense pleasure, the remedy worked.

As a result, she was one of a handful of nurses left standing on the whole ship. Betty and Evelyn were both in their bunks, clutching their stomachs and praying to every God they knew. Not even country medicine could help them now.

This of course, left Sadie to work even longer shifts in the sickbay to compensate for the missing nurses. The whole ship reeked of vomit, something Sadie thought she'd get used to, but never quite did. Rough seas threw the vessel around like a ragdoll, which resulted in a litany of unusual injuries. One of the surgeons was even forced to perform an appendectomy while the ship continued to thrash about.

Sadie was in the process of stretching sheets over a thin infirmary mattress, when the sickbay doors burst open.

"Somebody help us!" A deep voice roused her attention. Looking up from her task, she found a motley crew of three soldiers.

"Nurse Reid! Go attend those men!" One of the doctors barked from over the body of an unconscious man.

Wiping her hands on her smock apron, Sadie hurried forward and reached out to steady the chest of a man supported by his two companions. "What happened?"

"He took at tumble when the ship nearly went sideways," said a man with almost white-blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Blood had traced a path all the way down his forehead and threatened get in his eye, a souvenir from the same event.

"I think it's broken!" The man in the middle moaned.

"Alright, you're going to be fine Corporal," she said soothingly and lifted her head up. Sadie came face-to-face with Sergeant Bucky Barnes. Despite the situation, his lips twitched, threatening to pull into a smile. "Get him to that first open bed," she ordered and then followed them over. "What's your name?"

"Corporal John Nixon," the kid said, passing a hand over his eyes.

Sadie snapped her fingers to get the attention of one of the only orderlies on the entire ship. "Go get Doctor Holmes," she commanded. "Then fetch me a wound kit."

Leaning over the young corporal, she touched his hand gently before moving down to his foot. With his standard issue pants and combat boots on, it was impossible to tell the extend of the damage. Sadie drummed up her lessons from nursing school. His foot remained at the proper angle and didn't bend in any other unnatural way. Gingerly, she touched his foot and pulled back when he hissed in pain. "Alright, Corporal. I'm going to unlace your boot. We need to see your ankle to determine the extent of your injury."

Corporal Nixon nodded, gritting his teeth.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" A quiet, but steady voice filled Sadie's ears. Turning her head a fraction, she found Bucky next to her.

"Hold him down if he starts to thrash around too much," she said just as softly. "Keep talking to him too, that will help distract him from the pain." Bucky nodded and went to one side of the bed while his companion took the other.

With the gentlest touch she could muster, Sadie slowly unlaced Corporal Nixon's boot, tugging the laces all the way free. Bucky continued to speak to his friend, asking questions, making jokes, and eliciting any response he could. Once the laces were free, Sadie pulled the tongue of the boot forward.

"You there," she said to Bucky's companion.

"Sergeant Timothy Dugan, ma'am," he said standing straighter. "Everyone calls me Dum Dum."

Sadie's eyebrow rose. "Can you do the job of holding Corporal Nixon down on your own?" Dum Dum nodded. "Sergeant Barnes, come help me."

Bucky took his place next to Sadie. She inhaled and wrinkled her nose. He smelled awful, like the worst combination of sweat and stale vomit imaginable. "The line for the showers was too long this morning," he joked, catching on fast. "I wouldn't want to smell me either."

Sadie's cheeks swirled furious red at having been caught. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. Looks like I'll have to fall back on my winning charm and wit if my good looks and hygiene can't get me anywhere." Sadie shook her head in disbelief that Bucky could still be so good-natured despite the horrendous conditions in the enlisted barracks of the ship. "Now then, tell me what to do."

"Lift his leg and hold it as still as you can," said Sadie, glad to have an excuse to avoid further conversation. Bucky grasped Nixon's leg and very slowly brought it up, locking it in a firm grasp. Sadie grasped the boot and carefully worked it off Nixon's foot. The man writhed, doing his best not to curse like a sailor while Dum Dum held him down. "You're doing great Corporal. The hard part's over."

Swiftly, Sadie rolled up his pant leg and examined his ankle. Already the pale skin was bruising, mottled into a veritable rainbow of color. Narrowing her eyes, she could see that the swelling had set in as well. "There are no signs of an obvious break. But we'll need Dr. Holmes to confirm."

Just as she spoke, a man in his mid-thirties approached. Thinning hair swept across his forehead and he wore a white coat over his uniform. A pair of wire glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, the glass shining in front of kind brown eyes. Dr. Ian Holmes gave Sadie a weary smile. "Well now, what have we got here, Nurse Reid?"

"Corporal John Nixon, presents with what appears to be a twisted or sprained ankle," she said.

"Corporal Nixon, I'm Dr. Holmes. Let's have a better look at that ankle. Nurse Reid, will you take care of the Sergeant's head wound?"

Sadie had completely forgotten about Dum Dum's cut. Whirling around, she found Dum Dum and Bucky both sitting on an empty bed. Her lips tugged downward. Dum Dum's cut would need immediate attention, but concern piqued in her stomach at the sight of Bucky as well. He was too pale beneath the beginnings of an impressive beard and dark circles clung to the undersides of his eyes. Sadie knew the men were taking shifts sleeping, but she wondered if he'd gotten any sleep at all.

"Sergeant Barnes, are you feeling alright?"

His lips drew into a straight line and his eyes tightened before he nodded once. "I'm fine Nurse Reid," he said with a weak smile.

Bucky was lying.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention to Dum Dum. For all his imposing appearance, he proved to be a model patient. Curiosity got the better of her in the end and Sadie found herself finally asking the question she'd dying to ask for days now. "What is it that you all do down there?"

Dum Dum chuckled. "We gamble mostly, ma'am. We were in the middle of a poker game when prima ballerina over there took a spill."

Sadie's smiled. She dabbed disinfectant over the cleaned cut. "Who was winning?"

Her patient pulled a face. "Good ole' Bucky was taking us to the cleaners."

He was, was he? Sadie knew she shouldn't do it, but the opportunity knocked too hard to ignore. "He's got a tell, you know."

Dum Dum's entire countenance changed. The expression on his face shifted to one of curiosity and a very evil grin started reached into his eyes. "No shit," he paused. "I mean no kidding. What is it?"

Sadie looked over her shoulder to where Bucky stood with Corporal Nixon. "He straightens his mouth out when he's lying. Did it just now when I asked him how he was feeling." Without another word, Sadie taped on the small bandage to cover Dum Dum's cut. When she finished with her handiwork, she patted his shoulder. "Come back and see me to change that bandage. Normally I wouldn't worry but who knows what diseases are creeping around down in the enlisted cabins."

"I will take any excuse to get out of that hell-hole," he agreed and stood up. "It's been an absolute pleasure, Nurse Reid. Oh, and thanks for the tip!" Dum Dum tipped his head toward her and went to check on Nixon.

Sadie returned to Bucky. The ship pitched hard again and he placed an involuntary hand over his flat stomach. Bucky was currently a far cry from the cocky soldier who'd been too smooth for his own good only a few days before. Pity welled up in her stomach. If she remembered his chart correctly, he was from Brooklyn and likely had never been on a boat in his life. Sadie wasn't particularly a fan of his devil-may-care attitude, but she hated seeing anyone suffer if she could help it.

She'd kept a small bag of ginger in the front pocket of her apron. Sadie had enough to keep her well supplied even without it. Grabbing his hand, she ignored the surprised expression that put the faintest trace of color into his cheeks. Pressing the small bag of candy into his hand she closed his fingers over it. "Candied ginger. It should give you a little relief."

"You are a lifesaver," said Bucky all sincerity.

Sadie thought guiltily about giving away his tell to Dum Dum. "Don't go singing my praises just yet."

"Nurse Reid!" Dr. Holmes called. "Come over here and give me a hand."

Sadie nodded goodbye to Bucky and Dum Dum, leaving them to retreat back into the miserable bowels of the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter picks up in Sicily! Although in TFA, Bucky says he was shipping out for England, that detail doesn't match with the real timeline of the war. In reality, that early in '43, Bucky would have likely been shipped to Africa in preparation for the coming Italian invasion. Infantry troops didn't start flooding England until closer to the Normandy landings! The 107th is loosely following the movements of actual infantry units during the war. As it works its way through Italy, I have positioned it to fill gap areas in the Allied front lines. With the exception of a few details, everything in this story is as historically accurate as I could make it! 
> 
> I hope you're enjoying the story so far, I'd love to know what you think!


	3. Field Hospitals and Foxholes

Italy was hot.

There was just no getting around this obvious and unassailable fact. The pulsing temperature and humidity permeated every aspect of the rocky terrain. It was the sort of sticky heat that weighed down a man's lungs and yet left him thirsty and thinking with longing for the comforts of home. Mosquitos rose from pools of standing water left from the last of the May and June rain, following soldiers in swarms and causing even more misery. But there was one sentiment that each man in the 107th seemed to share. At least they were off the floating cesspool that carried them to Africa and out of the dry heat that sucked the moisture out of everything it reached in Tunisia. There were worse things than suffering the heat humidity of Sicily, and spending another day aboard the Queen Victoria or in the unbearable dryness of Tunisia were two of them.

Bucky tried to keep those small blessings in mind as the oppressive sun shone down on the convoy he rode in. The bad weather that accompanied the landing cleared up some hours ago, leaving nothing but endless blue sky and the harsh afternoon sun as it tracked across the sky.

"I swear to God I'm never getting on a boat again for the rest of my life," said Dum Dum, squinting into the early afternoon sun.

"Forget the boats, I'd settle for never setting foot on a beach again," muttered Private John Nixon.

A small smile tugged at Bucky's lips as he pressed his elbows into his knees, leaning forward. He could feel each and every small bump in the dirt road race through his booted feet, reverberating through his already rattled chest. He rode on the same convoy as Dum Dum and John Nixon, driving away from their thankfully anticlimactic and successful invasion of Europe. Privately he thought Dum Dum and Nixon were getting ahead of themselves. There were worse things to come, but nobody wanted to think about that right now. Instead he rerouted his mind to where they'd been so far.

Eight days after the Queen Victoria embarked from New York, she dropped anchor in Bizerte, Tunisia. It took two days to unload troops, supporting personnel, and cargo. By the time Bucky emerged from the main hold of the ship he felt as though he'd aged eight years. Bedraggled, exhausted, and still feeling the ill effects of the ship rolling on the Atlantic waves, the 107th dragged itself from the bowels of the ship and onto large trucks that carried them to their base camp. From there they set up tents and began preparing for the impending invasion.

F Company spent most of its time studying the invasion map, memorizing each maneuver it would carry out upon landing in Sicily. In addition, each man learned all of the other maneuvers of every other company down to the last detail. Bucky immersed himself in more map-reading lessons, language and customs reviews, tactical training and shooting. As a leader of the third rifle squad in the second platoon, Bucky was responsible with ensuring that his men were competent marksmen and soldiers, all while being a master marksman himself.

Bucky supposed this excellence came from years of practicing with slingshots, shooting spitballs at kids he didn't like, and his excellent hand-eye coordination. He'd never fired a gun in his life until he joined the military, but it came as easy to him as breathing. His body seemed perfectly attuned to the mechanics of a rifle and it became very apparent very early that he was made for sharpshooting. As such, he served as one of the unofficially designated long distance shooters in the company, able to hit snipers from the ground if the need arose. Bucky eyed the trigger of his rifle and wondered how many rounds he would blow through. His stomach turned at the thought of taking another life, enemy or not.

"Hey Buck!" Dum Dum's booming voice cut through his reverie. Snapping back to attention, Bucky nodded his head towards Dum Dum. The Bostonian held out a pack of cigarettes but Bucky waved his hand.

"Nah, but thanks."

"Not a smoker?" John Nixon asked, surprise coloring his voice.

Bucky shook his head. "Nope, never picked it up. Don't see the point in starting now."

"Well more for us," said Nixon cheerfully.

With his head bowed, the sun beat down on the exposed back of Bucky's neck. Rivulets of sweat slipped down his skin, cutting tracks through the fine layer of dirt and sand that clung to him. He'd showered plenty of times in the days between disembarking from the Queen Victoria in Tunisia and storming the beach at Licata, but that hardly mattered now that he'd sloshed his way onto the shore, crawled across sand, and took refuge from potential enemy fire in the dusty grass.

Dum Dum and Nixon bantered back and forth about what could possibly be worse than being stuck on a troop ship and Bucky was content to filter the argument into background noise. He sat near the end of the convoy, the butt of his rifle resting on the metal floor between his knees. Shifting his gaze away from his own boots, Bucky stole a furtive glance at his comrades.

Each man seemed to be handling their impending campaign in their own way. Dum Dum relieved his tension by being louder than usual while Nixon settled on egging his friend on. Further down the row Bucky could see one of his riflemen, Frank O'Connell rubbing his thumbs over the beads of a rosary and his friend Richie Juarez stared blankly ahead, the sleeve of his uniform slightly torn from the rough terrain up the beachhead to their rendezvous point. Other men diverted one another with conversation, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, puffing smoke as they spoke.

Bucky focused on the rumbling truck turning his eyes back to watch Dum Dum entertain those nearest him with tales from his sordid youth in Boston. Absently, Bucky drummed his fingers along the barrel of his rifle. He'd have to clean it later to get the sand out of the firing mechanism but it had thus far gone unshot in the combat zone.

The convoy was taking them to a narrow band of trees headed up a rocky ridge overlooking a small, German occupied down. They'd be taking the town first thing in the morning, but before then they would have to survive the night. Bucky's first sergeant had gathered his squad leaders before getting on the convoy to tell them to expect heavy shelling and no air support through the night. It looked like F Company would be getting their first taste of battle and Bucky was dreading it. He was seldom ever jealous of Steve, but in those moments as the convoys trundled towards the drop off point, Bucky had never been more jealous of Steve who was far away from the war.

Loud laughter distracted Bucky again.

"And then, if you fucking believe it, good old Nix here looks Captain Liebert right in the eye and he says 'missing bottle of scotch? I don't know nothing about no scotch.'" The men surrounding Dum Dum and Nixon howled with laughter. "And the whole time the bottle is sitting in the bottom of his footlocker."

"Liebert didn't even look?"

John Nixon shook his head laughing as Dum Dum thumped him on the back. "Nope. Bucky was there too! He saw the whole thing."

Bucky grinned and nodded as the attention shifted to him. "Captain Liebert took one look at Nix, called him a waste of goddamn oxygen and marched out. That was the worst hangover of my life, waking up after we drank that scotch."

"Man I can't believe we were one barrack over during training camp and missed all of this shit," said one of the other privates in Dum Dum's squad.

Dum Dum opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as the truck rolled to an abrupt halt. Calls and shouts rang through the air as F Company began to hop off the convoys to assemble.

"Second platoon on me!" First Lieutenant McAllister yelled from the truck over. Henry McAllister served as F Company's second platoon leader. He was a tall, blonde man in his late twenties. Bucky learned somewhere along the way that he'd played football for Georgia and came from southern money. A group of forty men began to gather around him. Bucky and the two other Staff Sergeants in charge of the rifle squads made their way to the lead. "Alright, listen up men. Second platoon is going to dig in through the center of the tree line, flanked by first and third platoons. Intelligence thinks we'll be targeted by German artillery in the town below so dig your foxholes deep and provide good cover. Staff Sergeant Taylor take your rifle squad to just below the ridge, Staff Sergeant Webster you men will take the middle and Staff Sergeant Barnes your squad will take up the rear.

"E and G companies will flank our position and line continues on down from there. We need to move fast and efficient, the 80th field hospital and clearing platoons are right behind us and need time to set up to take of your scrawny asses. Understood?"

A chorus of 'yes sirs' came from all around. Lieutenant McAllister gave them a short nod. "Alright then let's get it done."

"Second rifle squad, you heard the man. Grab your gear and let's move out!' Bucky shouted over the din. One by one, eleven men fell in with him. Ahead of them lay open ground. "Spread out and stay on alert."

They began walking forward and looked back only once when the trucks drove away. Bucky could see the other platoons and squads spread similarly, rifles at the ready. Each step they took drew closer to the front line and further into the war. Bucky swallowed his fears and kept his line moving forward.

X X X

During their brief tenure in Tunisia, the nurses and personnel of the 80th field hospital learned all the skills necessary to erect and dismantle an entire mobile hospital in record time. Each member of the hospital had a specific job she or he was tasked with all while knowing the exact role of every other member, allowing them to trade positions and pick up slack should the need arise. Nurses were in charge of unloading the convoys, helping erect the large tents, setting up patient cots, operating areas, and exam spaces. When the hospital was ready to ship on, each nurse knew her role in dismantling the entire operating and packing it away for their next post.

Sadie had lost count of the number of times her commanding officers ran through the procedure with the entire hospital. They'd practiced on the base in Tunisia at least a dozen times, simulating battlefield conditions as best as possible. On top of operations, all of the nurses learned to dig their own foxholes and slept in them to get their first taste of their coming life. Their white dresses and smocks were traded for the same standard issue uniform that the men wore from the olive drab field jackets right down to the leather combat boots. The makeup, stockings, jewelry, and other daily luxuries that field nurses brought along were left behind, taken up by extra morphine syrettes, rations, scissors, and bandages.

Somehow, they managed to find space in their gear for small tokens from home and little luxuries. Sadie kept a silver handled hairbrush in her musette along with pictures from home, and a pair of tweezers lest her dark eyebrows get out of control. She wore her dog tags and a second chain around her neck bearing three items: a Saint Agatha's medal, a Saint Christopher's medal, and her father's wedding ring. When she began restless Sadie rubbed her thumb over the shining gold, drawing comfort from the bittersweet memories of a life before the war.

Sadie's primary role was to unpack, inventory, and prepare all the medications and supplies for the main hospital tent. She carried the heavy crates into the tents as soon as practicable, setting up the makeshift cabinets and tables that held all of the supplies. At any given time she knew exactly how much of each type of medicine they had on hand, what patients were to receive what treatment, and how to triage incoming wounded in case of medicine shortages. The crates were heavy and Sadie noticed by the end of her short tenure in Africa her arms show the definition of muscles she had no idea she possessed.

At the moment, Sadie considered what she'd look like by the end of the Italian campaign as she ducked out of the hospital tent, jogging lightly to the truck for another crate. Other medical personnel were working as fast as they could to finish erecting and securing the other tents that comprised the 80th. As Sadie paused at the truck to wipe the sweat from her brow, Betty joined her.

"I still can't believe we're so close to the front line with only an aid station between."

Betty's complaint seemed to echo the sentiment of the four other nurses and several of the lower level technicians. Their commanding officer had gathered the hospital at the drop off point to announce that given the current plan to move the 107th as quickly through Sicily as possible, there was no need to set up the full chain of evacuation, favoring the strategy to get the wounded to the field and then evacuation hospitals as swiftly as possible. Thus, the 80th field hospital stood a mere ten miles from the front line with only an aid station in-between.

"Battalion HQ is just doing what it thinks is best. At least we're not the litter bearers," she said reasonably and jerked her head over to three kids that worked on securing stretchers to the jeeps that would run out to the the company aid stations at a moment's notice through the night. Although they'd all been assured that aid stations were relatively safe, they were still open targets for poorly aimed mortars or air raids.

"Still, we were promised thirty miles. Sometimes I think the Army is treating the 107th and the 80th like their own personal experiments." Sadie rolled her eyes at Betty's overdramatic statement.

"I think you'll make it," said Sadie and she grabbed the next crate of plasma. Once she had a good grip on the heavy box, she started back to the main hospital tent.

A small curse slipped out of her lip as she struggled to get past the mosquito netting hanging in the doorway of the tent. The additional layer came as a response to the rash of malaria that cropped up in Africa and looked to only get worse in the humid Italian summer.

"I barely made it off the ship alive," muttered Betty, following her with a crate of bandages and supplies in her arms.

"Now you're definitely over exaggerating," teased Sadie. She got the crate down with the others and paused to dig her knuckles into a particularly sore spot in her lower back. The humidity permeated through the canvas tent and sweat poured down Sadie's back, causing her undergarments to stick uncomfortably to her skin. She thought with longing for the pond near the farmhouse on her parents land and the large oak that shaded most of the picket-fenced back yard. "What I wouldn't give for a cold lemonade and a good book right now," she remarked offhandedly.

Betty snorted in poorly concealed, slightly sarcastic laughter. "Could you be any more innocent? I'd rather have a mojito and a spot poolside at a nice Miami hotel."

Sadie made a face. "Keep Miami. I think I'll stick with the country, thanks."

"You would, Miss Arkansas," teased Betty. The blonde gave Sadie a roguish wink as she took her bandages to a different supply area. Sadie rolled her eyes and started for the next crate, telling herself there was nothing wrong with wanting a slice of peace and quiet, no matter how childish and innocent it sounded to her more cultured friends.

Outside the late afternoon sun was starting to crest towards the westward horizon. It would be dark soon and already Sadie could feel the tension rising. The hospital had been informed that the 107th expected heavy shelling through the night and that they should expect to see their first casualties of the war. Everyone from the head surgeon right down to the lowliest private seemed to vibrate with a sick sort of anticipation.

Sadie felt it too, wondering what injuries awaited them. She knew from nursing school that there was a massive difference between reading about wounds and studying pictures versus seeing the real thing in person. Often she found herself obsessing over whether she would be able to handle the real deal with it came before her or if she would crack under the pressure, unable to handle the nasty realities of war and medicine. Nobody could teach how to really mentally prepare for an operation of this magnitude and Sadie could only hope that when the time came she could handle whatever happened.

The comfort time was rapidly running out and as she grabbed another crate from the truck, she wondered what the infinite night ahead would bring.

X X X

"I've never been camping," said Bucky as he hauled another shovel full of dirt out of the dry earth. "But this seems worse."

PFC Gerald Meyers chuckled. "How come you've never been camping? You have a shitty childhood or something?"

Bucky paused and dropped his head back, letting out a half laugh. Dirt lined the undersides of his fingernails and he could feel his skin stretching and cracking over his knuckles. "I grew up in Brooklyn, the closest thing I got to camping was waiting outside Ebbets Field on opening day. Where are you from?"

He pushed his spade deeper into the earth and kept digging. "Eugene, Oregon. Spent my whole life camping with my dad and we never did anything like this. You said you've been Ebbets Field? To see the Dodgers play?"

Bucky had never even heard of Eugene, Oregon. PFC Meyers' town was just another pin dot on the empty expanse of his mental map. In Bucky's mind there was New York and, well, everywhere else. He hadn't realized just how expansive the country was until he started meeting men from all of its corners. "Yeah, it was just about the only thing we could afford."

"We? You got a brother?"

In his chest, Bucky's heartstrings tightened uncomfortably. He hoped that wherever Steve was it was better than a foxhole in one of the hottest places on the whole damn planet. "Something like that, yeah," he said noncommittally, unwilling to talk about it further.

They fell into silence, putting their full effort into getting dug in. By the time they finished, his Chino shirt was plastered to his body. Even at night the temperatures were warm and all Bucky wanted to do was lay down and get some sleep. After the weeks, he wasn't sure if he'd ever get a full night's sleep again. But at long last they were finished and started to settle in.

"Sergeant Barnes!" Bucky sat up to see the shadow of Lieutenant McAllister jogging towards him.

"Sir!"

Lieutenant McAllister crouched low. "We just got word, A and B companies suffered delays getting to their rendezvous points and are just now arriving at their spots on the line. Nobody has managed to connect with E Company yet. First platoon is sending a patrol to link up. We've only got one aid station a few hundred yards off the line and the 80th field hospital was forced up closer than expected, only ten miles out. That means only major injuries will leave the line tonight. Keep your men in their foxholes," McAllister cast a dark look to their surroundings. "I've got a feeling it's going to get real bad."

Meyers, who had been listening in, cast a dubious look toward the back end of the line where the trees thinned out into rocky terrain.. "Sir," said Meyers slowly. "The doctors and nurses are going to be that close to the shelling?"

"Looks that way."

For all of the army's planning, it seemed there were just some things it couldn't account for. The field hospitals were to remain closer to thirty miles behind the front line at all times. But now the 80th would be ten miles away, practically a stone's throw.

"Once we get past the first advance things should sort out properly," said McAllister. "Bucky, keep your men in their foxholes, I don't want any unnecessary casualties if we can help it."

"Yes, sir," said Bucky. He and Meyers watched as McAllister jogged off, staying low in the dusk.

"The doctors and nurses might as well dig foxholes in with us they're gonna be so close," muttered Meyers irritably. "What the fuck are we gonna do if they get hit?"

Bucky tried not to think about it. Without noticing, his mind drifted to Nurse Reid. Was she a member of the 80th? Or was she part of an evacuation or permanent hospital unit? He'd only ever seen her in a white nurse's uniform with nicely curled hair and makeup. It was almost impossible for him to imagine her or her friends out here in the middle of all this.

"Just in case you should keep your head down and try not to get hit," said Bucky. Meyers chuckled and they settled down into the foxhole, pushing cover over their heads. At length darkness descended. The air was unnaturally quiet, broken only by the occasional nervous laugh or distant gunfire. Every time Bucky heard it he started, his whole body tense.

"God, it's even hotter than hell at night," muttered Meyers.

Bucky rolled his eyes. Tipping his helmet to a more comfortable spot on his head, he started to retort but never finished his thought.

The trees and the air overhead literally exploded.


	4. First Names and the Fourth of July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read and left kudos and comments! I know that this story is based on a movie that's been around for a while so it means the world to me that you're giving it a shot. 
> 
> Also, what happens in this chapter would never have happened in real life during the war. So I'm waving my Marvel wand and we're just going to call it good. Deal? Deal. In all seriousness, I do try to stick to canon and actual history as close as possible but sometimes I have to bend the facts a little bit and I will always give you a heads-up when I do! I updated the tags but I want to give you a head's up: this story contains depictions of war and the violence/imagery can be graphic at times, beginning with this chapter.
> 
> Disclaimer - I don't own Marvel. But a girl can dream, right?

Bucky loved the Fourth of July. Not only was it one of his favorite holidays, but it also happened to be Steve's birthday. When she was alive, Steve's mother would pull out all the stops starting with red, white, and blue paper decorations, blueberry pancakes and the few presents she'd managed to scrape together, usually more drawing supplies. If the Dodgers were playing a home game Bucky's dad would take them to the baseball game and then back to Steve's house for a small party. Steve's mom would cook a veritable fourth of July feast topped off with a massive angel food cake coated with a mountain of whipped cream and sliced strawberries. Together, Steve and Bucky liked to celebrate by shooting off homemade bottle rockets and cherry bombs out in one of the empty abandoned lots down the street. Kids from all over the neighborhood would come out with them and they would take turns trying to hit targets painted on boards or even the brick walls of the nearest buildings. Later they would find prime spots for one of the city's fireworks shows. Bucky had always enjoyed fireworks, especially the big colored ones that he only ever saw on the Fourth.

When the first shells exploded overhead, all Bucky could think about was the Fourth of July. His brain couldn't straighten out the bright lights and deep booms from the smell of Brooklyn in July and the taste of fresh cut strawberries. Squeezing his eyes shut, Bucky could even see Steve jumping out of his seat, baseball glove raised high over his head to catch a foul ball. For a few precious seconds, Bucky was completely disoriented, unsure if he was back in Brooklyn during the most spectacular fireworks display of his life or if he'd actually passed the gates straight into hell. But then he heard the yelling of the man in the foxhole with him and Bucky knew this was no Fourth of July spectacular.

Flashes of light accompanied by the loudest cracks of thunder he ever heard temporarily deafened him. The trees above didn't just break, they splintered, sending shards of wood in a thousand directions at once. Throwing his hands on top of his head, cracked the side of his hand atop his helmet and shoved himself as far down into his foxhole as he could.

"Mother of God!" PFC Meyers shouted and hunkered down even lower than Bucky. Sprays of dirt flew through their cover and hit Bucky across the face.

Above them the show in the night sky transcended any fireworks display Bucky had ever seen, it was without a doubt the most awe inspiring display of military prowess he'd ever seen. Each flash and bang was blinding and deafening. The ground trembled beneath the fury of the German artillery, shaking right into the core of Bucky's heart.

Flash. Boom. Trees blew apart.

Flash. Boom. The sound of heavy branches falling to the earth came with an ear-splitting crack.

Flash. Boom. The earth threatened to split in two beneath Bucky's body.

Flash. Boom. "MEDIC!"

Bucky scrambled around to rise up to the edge of his foxhole. Peering out, he tried to see who had been hit. A shadow rose from a nearby foxhole and in the flash of light from another shell, he could see the white band on the man's arm, adorned with a red circle and white cross. One of the platoon's medics kept low, barreling as fast as he could to the sound of strangled screaming, heard only between shell bursts.

"I need a medic!" The strangled scream permeated the air between shells. Other heads began to pop up and Bucky cursed under his breath.

"Stay in your foxholes!" He bellowed to his surrounding rifle company.

"Where's it coming from?" Meyers asked, his voice loud in Bucky's ear.

"Further up, second squad," hissed Bucky as he watched the medic disappear, presumably dropping into the wounded's foxhole.

Flash. Bang. Bucky felt the pinging of splintered wood bounce off his helmet and he dropped low. He could just barely see one of the two medics in his platoon running closer to the front of the line, answering the call of another wounded soldier.

"Who is it?" Meyers yelled over a new wave of shelling.

"I don't know!" Bucky yelled back, squinting his eyes through a fresh cloud of dirt that rose up. Meyers was muttering under his breath that words Bucky couldn't hear. He turned back around and dropped low, pressing his back against the hard earth. Closing his eyes he tried to take a few deep breaths to clam himself. As a rule, Bucky tried not to think much about home, but he couldn't help it. Counting the beats of his heart, he thought about sitting down at Mrs. Rogers' scrubbed kitchen table to a huge slice of cake and vanilla ice cream. The windows were open and a warm breeze drifted into the small kitchen, crammed with family and friends. The radio was buzzing with the announcer's call of another game, Bucky didn't know which. They were singing happy birthday as the night began to descend, beckoning Steve and Bucky back out to shoot roman candles at each other while the little kids ran through the streets with sparklers.

A shell slammed into one of the trees nearest their foxhole. Bucky blacked out for less than a minute but when he came to Meyers was writing in pain. Turning his head to the side he could see his companion gritting his teeth to hold back his shouting. A piece of the tree burst tore through his uniform, sticking straight out of his shoulder.

"MEDIC!"

X X X

Thunderstorms terrified Sadie when she was a little girl. The months of April and May were nothing short of torture for her when massive storm clouds rolled through central Arkansas. Each time the thunder split and lightning forked across the sky she would clap her hands over her ears and cower under her covers until the terror became so strong that she would run to the shelter of her parents' room. Norma Reid insisted that it was the sound of the thunder. Sadie's father, Martin Reid, remained convinced that it was the flashes of lightning and wind that howled and rattled the windows.

Sadie, however, knew that it was all of those things combined. The pressing fear that a tornado would rip through their lovely home and destroy all of their lovely things haunted her when she went to sleep on cloudy nights. In her seven year old mind, Sadie equated thunderstorms with total destruction, of having everything she loved ripped away from her. Her terror built to a fever pitch where often her parents would catch her trying to take one too many toys with her to bed so she could easily grab them if they had to dash to the storm cellar. It wasn't until she'd tried to bring them into her parents bed one night that her father knew things had gone too far.

One afternoon in late April, shortly after Sadie's eighth birthday, her father took her for a walk near the pond on the property. He'd taken off work at the hospital early for the sole purpose of talking to her about conquering her fears. Above them the storm clouds were beginning to roll in, promising to be another whopper of a system. Even walking out in the open sent Sadie into a fit of trepidation and the only thing that rooted her to the gravel path was her father's hand clutching hers.

"What scares you the most?" He'd asked. As long as Sadie lived, she would never forget her father's slow and soothing voice. Martin's southern accent rolled soft over his consonants and drew out his vowels. Every time she heard her father's voice, Sadie thought about white-washed porch swings and sweet tea.

"That it'll come and tear everything up," said Sadie, tears welling in her overlarge grey eyes. Each of her small fingers gripped her father's hand so tight, her knuckles were white. "And there's nothing I can do about it."

Martin stopped and turned to face Sadie, crouching in front of her. He gathered both of her hands in his and looked up at the rapidly darkening sky, then back to her. "There is always something you can do, Sade," he said firmly. "As long as you keep a steady head on your shoulders, you can take control of your own fate. Even when the storms roll through."

Sadie rocketed forward, throwing her arms around Martin and pressing her face into his shirt. "But I get so scared."

"There's nothing wrong with being scared. You just can't let your fear control you."

"How?" She wailed, fat tears beginning to fill her eyes.

"It takes time," said Martin thoughtfully. "But any time I'm scared before a surgery, I close my eyes and count to five and I think about one thing I can do to make the situation better."

Sadie had let him lead her back towards the house where her mother stood on the front porch, waiting for them. "But you're really brave, daddy. I'm not."

"You're just as brave as I am, Sadie. One day you'll see."

X X X

One.

Sadie had long grown out of her fear of thunderstorms, in fact storms were some of her favorite weather. But, she'd never forgotten her father's advice.

Two.

Each breath she took rattled her chest but tempered her raw nerves. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to shut out the sensory overload that whirled around her with the force of the most powerful tornado she could imagine.

Three.

Beneath her booted feet, the angry earth rumbled and the wind through the tent flaps howled. It's just another storm, she told herself. All storms cleared, the dark clouds would eventually recede and leave nothing but the brilliant sun.

Four.

Until the storm cleared, she could still take control. She could always do something, a mantra she'd adopted and repeated to herself countless times over the years. A steady head had never steered her wrong and she knew she could put it to good use by triaging incoming patients and ensuring that the last runner had taken a jeep to the F Company aid station as requested.

Five.

Sadie opened her eyes to find she was still in the center of a different kind, but far worse storm. There was movement everywhere and the sounds of shouting personnel, wailing soldiers, and shrill sirens of ambulances as they raced towards the evacuation hospital at the end of the line almost drowned out the booming, distant explosions. Almost. Each one, although several miles away, shook the unforgiving soil, causing the tent poles to waver uncertainly and normally steady hands to pause.

Overhead planes soared, the German contingent that apparently was shelling the daylights out A and B Companies but reaching as far in as E Company. The 107th was without air support and was so crushed up between the German line and the shore that even the field hospital was under threat of possible attack. White-faced doctors tried to keep everything moving at an orderly pace. But as Sadie looked around, she knew it was then nurses that were really keeping order. Over the course of her training Sadie had heard multiple people scoff at the idea of nurses so close to the front line, but as she watched Evelyn bodily hold a struggling soldier down while a doctor bandaged a bad abdominal wound, she thought the nurses would get the last laugh. Looking down at the white smock she wore over her olive drab uniform, she couldn't see the dirt and blood smears from her own work.

She'd just left her fifth patient of the night, a private from who knew which company. Already he was loaded on one of the returning ambulances. There hadn't been much Sadie could have done for him at the field hospital except insert a needle into his arm to administer plasma and change his bandage with the help of two medical technicians. Neither of the technicians, each eighteen at the most, had been able to handle the sight of the bleeding, raw stump where the patient's leg had once been, amputated just above the knee by an artillery blast.

But Sadie didn't have the luxury of looking away. Gritting her teeth, she'd checked the private's lapel for a morphine syrette to indicate if he'd been given the drug, peeled the bandage away, and pulled the large pieces of wood and debris that she could see in the less than stellar lighting of the main tent. Her patient, completely relaxed thanks to the morphine, babbled incoherently as she worked swiftly before applying a fresh round of sulfanilamide power and clean bandages. The technicians, looking extremely green around the gills, hauled the private off to the next waiting ambulance.

That had been only a moment ago and now Sadie was standing by to receive the next wounded.

"Nurse Reid!" Sadie turned her attention to Doctor Ian Holmes as he strode towards her. A gifted surgeon and unfailingly kind man, Doctor Holmes was a favorite with the nurses. "Did you get that kid with the missing leg taken care of?"

"Yes, sir!" She replied. More wailing from ambulance sirens pierced the air. "He's getting out in time."

"And that sergeant with shrapnel damage to his arm?"

"His wounds weren't as major, he's resting in recovery now. He can wait to take an ambulance to the evac hospital in the morning after the critical patients go."

Doctor Holmes nodded, his face relaxing a fraction. "Good work, Nurse Reid. Take the breather and check on your other patients while you have a chance. I'm sure another wave will be coming soon."

"Yes, sir," she replied. Doctor Holmes started to walk away and then he paused. "You're all handling this so well. The army thought bringing nurses so close to the front lines would be a disaster, but honestly I can't think of anything better."

Sadie barely had time to find a smile for Doctor Holmes when a fresh stretcher burst through the tent flaps, carried by two runners. "Nurse Reid, you're with me," he said as the runners set the stretcher on the cot nearest the tent flaps.

Their patient, a young Hispanic man was shivering. Sadie rushed to his side and reached up, peeling his eyelid back and tilting his head towards the light. His pupils were unresponsive and he stared straight past her into the distance. Glancing down, she tried and failed to swallow her hiss of comprehension. A large white field bandage stretched across his abdomen. Doing her best to hold him steady, Sadie watched as Doctor Holmes peeled the bandage away to reveal a large wound that had literally scraped the surface of his skin off, revealing muscle and silvery connective tissue.

"I don't wanna die," the soldier muttered and his voice slipped into fluid Spanish. His hands shook at his sides and Sadie reached for one.

"You're not going to die Corporal," she promised as Doctor Holmes began to work.

"You'll be just fine, son. It's not that bad." Doctor Holmes echoed his statement. "Nurse Reid, get some gauze and mop up this blood, I can't see what I'm doing."

Sadie didn't think, she didn't flinch. Instead she reached for the fresh tray of medical supplies that a technician had placed out at some point. Ripping the gauze package open, she began to gently wipe the blood away, clearing the field of vision for Doctor Holmes. Behind them another stretcher came in bearing a soldier who was using curse words and phrases Sadie had never heard before. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Betty dart forward to help.

A head popped into the tent.

"I need a runner! F Company's aid station has at least two wounded to bring in." The runners were supposed to be stationed near the entrance of the main tent, ready to leap into action at a moment's notice. "I need a runner!"

No answer. Sadie continued to help Doctor Holmes, assuming that all of the runners were out until she heard. "Come on, get yourself together! F Company's aid station is waiting for us!"

Both Sadie and Doctor Holmes turned to look from where they had almost stabilized their patient. One of the runners that Sadie recognized from earlier in the day sat on the ground. He'd placed his head between his knees and he locked his fingers behind his neck. "I'm not doing it. I'm not fucking going," he kept saying as he shook his head. Doctor Holmes frowned.

"Nurse Reid, I've got the Corporal here, go get that man on his feet. If he won't do his duty then go in his place."

"Yes, sir!"

Jogging towards the driver they locked grim eyes and turned their attention to the runner. Sadie crouched low, her clinical eyes evaluating the private's pale, sweaty skin and his visible trembling. The smell of fresh vomit wafted from him and she could see the stains on his uniform. A frown pulled her lips downward, all of the nurses had been instructed to see the signs of panic, but unfortunately it was hard to talk a terrified man off his ledge.

"Private, what's your name?"

"It's Jordan," said the driver, standing nearby. He shifted his weight and cast a worried look back out of the tent. "F Company's been screaming into my radio for the last five minutes, I don't got time to wait. You got any other runners?"

"They're all out in the field," said Sadie darkly, the driver swore under his breath. "Private Jordan, look at me, you're needed at F Company's aid station," she said sharply. Instead of waiting, Sadie forced a hand under his chin and grasped it, pulling him up to look at her. Except Private Jordan's glassy eyes stared off just like her other injured men. Not all wounds are visible, one of her superior officers had said during training.

"I can't do it," he said, his voice giving out.

"I know it's scary but you need to get on your feet, Private Jordan you have to go!" She shouted and gave him a gentle shake, trying to force him back to reality. The ground shook beneath their feet. Jordan shuddered and cowered lower, shaking his head. He rocked uncertainly, his helmet slipping to the side.

"S-send Private Lukas!"

"Private Lukas is out at C Company's aid station, you're the only runner that can go! You have to go! You have to go now! Get up now! That's an order!"

But Jordan covered his head with his hands. Sadie looked around hopeless as the driver jogged toward them. Another shell shook the heart with a mighty boom. "Nurse! We've got to go! Can he go?"

Sadie took a miserable look at Corporal Jordan and felt resolve harden as the thought back to Doctor Holmes' order. "No, but I can!" She shouted back.

Sadie got to her feet and cast a pitying look at Private Jordan. The driver looked at her astounded. "But you're just a nurse!"

"And I know a hell of a lot more about tending wounded men than you do! Now let's go!" The driver paused long enough to evaluate Sadie's hardened expression and her fists clenched at her side. Swiftly, she untied her apron and paused long enough to shove it into Private Jordan's hands. "Go find Doctor Holmes, tell him I've gone in your place. He'll help you out," she said kindly. Blankly, Private Jordan nodded. Turning back to the driver, Sadie glared at him. "Are you going to stand there all night? Or am I going to have to drive the jeep myself?"

The driver's concern broke and he gave her a breathless grin, one that clearly said she'd earned his respect. Together the tore out of the tent entrance and got in the jeep. "I'm Corporal Davies, ma'am! Sorry about your relay man!"

"I'm not surprised! He was one of the few shouting about how many Germans he was going to kill all while saving countless lives," said Sadie from where she sat in the front seat. Corporal Davies barked in laughter. "I'm Nurse Reid."

"You're alright Nurse Reid. Now when we get there there'll be an open line between the front and the aid station. Stay under cover and move when I tell you to."

Sadie cast Davies a sidelong glance. "You know I outrank you, right?"

Davies grinned at her, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. "Yeah, but you've never been this close to the front line before. We can all benefit from the experience of others."

Sadie's ears rang from the sound of explosions that grew louder and more violent the closer they got to the front line. "Can't argue with that," she replied over the din of the mortar rounds.

The aid station was nothing more than an open sided tent with the large white and red cross stamped on the top flap. Upturned medicine crates supported the ends of stretchers on which two wounded men lay. Old gas lamps hung beneath the tent, providing narrow beams of light over the medical officer working furiously over one of his patients. Sadie jumped out of the jeep before it stopped and jogged over. The medical officer glanced up and then did a double-take when Sadie came into relief.

"What the fuck is a nurse doing here? If medical battalion HQ finds out they'll lose their shit!"

"Relay man froze and the runners are overwhelmed. It was me or nobody at all," snapped Sadie in reply, rolling up her sleeves and jostling a terrified private out of the way. The man on the stretcher lay in a prone position, his pant leg torn open to reveal a gaping wound, peppered with large wood fragments from the fragile trees that must have exploded above him. He was unnaturally still and out of reflex Sadie glanced up to see the needle from a morphine syrette pushed through his collar. "Besides, I won't tell if you don't."

He nodded once and then looked hopelessly down at the soldier. "There isn't much I can do for him here."

The medic watched as Sadie reached forward to rotate his leg open and where the private had balked at the idea of touching the gruesome wound, she pressed her clean palm down to help stymy the bleeding and began helping pull the splintered wood out. The medic hissed at the sight and Sadie shot him a concerned glance. Front line medics were no more than regular men who'd been unceremoniously slapped with the title. Reaching out, she grabbed the medic's hand and force him to take her place. "Hold your hand there, help plug that bleeder. Feel it out until the tip of your finger hits the source."

The medical slid his finger up the line and found the source where the bleed bubbled up. "Right here?"

"Nicely done. Let's get a bandage plugging the hole and wrap him up." Together they managed to hold off the bleeding and got him bandaged up. Sadie accepted a rag and wiped her hands off and watched as Davies and two other men hauled the soldier onto the front litter.

"Thanks," said the medic breathlessly. "He's had one syrette but I've got no plasma."

"There's some back at the field hospital. One of the doctors there can sort him out before he goes to the evac hospital."

"You're with the 80th then?"

"Yes, first clearing platoon," replied Sadie and she watched as Corporal Davies and the private attending the aid station loaded the man up onto the stretcher attached to the front of the jeep.

"Well, all I can say is thank god for Army nurses," he said and grinned at her. Sadie started to jog back to the jeep when a strangled shout came from the thin tree line. Two shadowy figures burst from the tree line, bodily dragging a third man behind them. Corporal Davies paused from his spot in the driver's side of the jeep and took his hand off the clutch. Sadie and medic jogged forward to intercept the two sergeants. Their charge wasn't in nearly as bad of shape and Sadie helped the medic attend to his shrapnel wounds until a third yell came from the tree line.

"Can you go help them? I'm almost finished here," said the medic.

Sadie nodded and paused beneath the tent as an airplane roared overhead. As soon as it was clear the ran the short distance to the tree line as someone shouted. "MEDIC! I need a medic!"

She slid to a stop just inside the tree line. A tall man was kneeling over another, trying to keep compression down on his shoulder. "What do we have?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"Nurse?" The man asked in a shocked sort of voice. Sadie fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"It was starting to get slow at the hospital so I thought I'd take a walk," she said sarcastically and to her surprise heard the soft chuckle of the man. In the slivers of moonlight that broke through the trees she could see his handsome face. "I'm Nurse Reid."

"Lieutenant McAllister," he said. "Must be some crazy night if the nurses are out here."

Sadie helped him shift the wounded soldier into a shaft of light to better see the wound in his shoulder. "It's just me," she explained and grasped the edges of the private's uniform, further ripping it open. "It doesn't look bad," she paused, not knowing the kid's name.

"Private Meyers," supplied Lieutenant McAllister. "Tree burst overhead caught his foxhole."

"Were you with him?" She asked as she used the blood bandage to mop up more of the blood with one hand while fishing in her pack for another.

"Nah, I was two over. The guy with him should be here any second to help me get Meyers across, he was grabbing the kid's helmet."

"I can help you," she said but stopped short at footfall. Break in the shelling meant she could hear everything including Private Meyer's rasping breath, the erratic beat of her heart and the voice that accompanied their new companion. Sadie lifted her head and her jaw dropped as Sergeant Barnes dropped to his knees next to them, helmet jammed over his head and rifle slung to his back.

Both of them recognized each other and opened their mouths to speak but words never left their mouths. At that very moment a plane soared overhead and dropped its payload. Sadie only barely saw the impact of the shell as it fell right into the center of the aid station. The rickety tent, jeep, and the men attending all went sky high as the force of the explosion pushed them backwards, her helmet falling back off her head. A strong arm came over her shoulder, holding her back and she looked up to see Bucky's horrified face as he kept her steady, both of them having fallen into the dirt.

X X X

Bucky was beginning to think the universe was trying to tell him something. Signs from God or the stars aligning in some weird formation or some unknown force plotting out the most unbelievable situations imaginable were just a few of the theories that he come up with. Because as he and Nurse Reid dragged a howling Private Meyers back to his foxhole, Bucky could not come up with a single rational explanation for how out of all the women in the whole army he was paired up with Nurse Reid yet again.

Lieutenant McAllister, thoroughly stunned at the gruesome scene of the burning aid station, had ordered Bucky and Nurse Reid back to a foxhole for safety and to take Meyers with them. The aerial assault had begun, effectively cutting the wounded off from help and Nurse Reid off from the evacuation hospital where she belonged. A series of unfortunate events had led her to the front line and Lieutenant McAllister, recognizing that Meyers was in desperate need of medical attention pulled rank. So, Sadie grasped one side of Meyer's uniform and Bucky the other. Without a single word, she gave him a massive tug and Bucky followed while the bombs continued to fall.

Maybe this was Steve's doing, he thought as they moved as fast as they could. Bucky wondered if his best friend was sitting in his apartment sticking pins into a voodoo doll of Bucky's likeness, howling with laughter at the notion of Bucky being stuck in a foxhole with the one nurse in the whole damn army who was completely immune to him. Perhaps Steve had stuck a pin in Bucky's heart because he could feel it absolutely hammering and it had nothing to do with the carnage he'd experienced thus far. Had Steve put a pin in Bucky's brain? Bucky certainly had wasted plenty of time thinking about Nurse Reid, despite her apparent distaste for him.

"This way," said Bucky and at last, they reached the foxhole. "Come on Meyers, back in you go."

Bucky looked to help Nurse Reid into the foxhole but heard the soft thud of her booted feet hit the bottom and she raised her arms to help Meyers down. He could hardly see her face, but Bucky knew that she was still shaking because he was. They'd seen the brutal killing of five men right in front of their eyes, that was enough to rattle anyone to their core.

"Come on, Private," she said gently and Meyers slid back into the foxhole. Bucky dropped in next to him.

"What can I do?" He asked.

"He's soaked this bandage," said Nurse Reid. "There's a fresh one in my bag, grab it and a sulfanilamide packet, that will help stymy the bleeding."

Meyers groaned as he leaned back against the wall of the foxhole, tilting his head upwards. "Goddamn planes, I hate this fucking place, I really do."

Bucky pursed his lips. "Everyone hates it Meyers and watch your language, we've got company."

Meyers chuckled. "Right, I forgot. Excuse me for a minute while I clean up the sitting room and check on the roast."

Nurse Reid's soft laugh filled the tense are between them. "No need to stand on ceremony, but I'll take a gin and tonic if you've got it." The tension broke and Bucky was glad of it. Ever since coming to to find Meyers cursing like a sailor and staring horrified at the chunk of tree in his shoulder Bucky had been existing in a state of barely controlled panic. "It's not bad, you'll be just fine."

"You think I'll get a purple heart?" Meyers asked as Nurse Reid tenderly moved the scraps of his uniform out of the way. She took the sulfanilamide powder Bucky held out, ripped it open with her teeth and dumped its contents over the wound. "I bet a purple heart'll impress Millie Caulfield back home."

"Your girl?" Asked Nurse Reid softly.

"Only in my dreams," he muttered and hissed.

Bucky opened the bandage kit and handed it to Nurse Reid. "Lift him away from the wall," she said and Bucky leaned forward. They were painfully close as Sadie pushed the compress against Meyers' shoulder and reached beneath Bucky's arms to wrap the bandage. "That's the best I can do until transport can be reestablished, just try to relax and get some sleep. But to answer your question, yes. I think this is good enough for a purple heart, you're only lucky it wasn't worse."

"Lucky?" Echoed Meyers. "No offense Nurse but Buck here and I are sharing a foxhole with a gorgeous woman. We're probably the luckiest sons of bitches in the whole army."

Bucky grimaced but Nurse Reid just chuckled and fell lightly against the foxhole wall. She wiped her bloody hands off on the legs of her pants. "Just don't let Millie Caulfield hear you say that or you'll never win her heart. Thank you for your help, Sergeant Barnes," she said finally addressing Bucky.

In the dim light, Bucky could see her shining eyes on him and he shrugged. "No problem, Nurse Reid. Just glad to have someone here to help out. But I have to ask…"

"How did a nurse end up in a foxhole on the front line?" She asked, exhausting pulling at her voice, bringing out her southern accent. "Let's just say there's a runner back at the field hospital who is having a worse night than I am."

"Ah," said Bucky. "So I shouldn't expect to see you outrunning German bombs any time soon?"

"I sincerely hope I never see the outside of the hospital tent again, Sergeant Barnes."

"Bucky," he said firmly. "Everyone calls me Bucky."

Soft snores in the miraculous quiet told Bucky that Meyers had finally passed out.

"Sarah Grace," said Nurse Reid. Bucky didn't even have to look at her to know she was smiling, she could hear it in her voice. "My friends and family call me Sadie."

"Can I call you Sadie?" He asked, rolling over the name in his head. Sarah Grace Reid. Sadie Reid. He decided that he liked Sadie, especially considering Sarah was Steve's mother's name.

"Buck Sergeant, if we live through this you can call me whatever you want."

Bucky laughed. He could see that Sadie was smiling, her eyes closed and face finally relaxed, clearly pleased with her little joke. "Buck Sergeant. I see what you did there, real funny."

"I thought so," she said. The distant rumbling of artillery fire startled them both. "So, what do you do to pass the time?"

Bucky made a face. "Normally we play poker, however seeing as you betrayed my tell to Dum Dum, I don't have a dollar to my name to bet."

Sadie's laugh was light and musical and intoxicating. Bucky quietly agreed with Meyers that he was likely one of the luckiest men in the whole army, sitting in a filthy foxhole across from Sadie. "I am sorry about that, but the opportunity was just too good to pass up."

"Yeah, I probably would have done the same thing."

"I don't doubt it," she said. Meyers moaned softly in his sleep and Sadie slipped back into nurse mode, moving to check on him. The night wore on, punctuated by Bucky and Sadie's sporadic conversation between shelling rounds. Sleep finally overtook Bucky a couple of hours before dawn, unaware that Sadie's head had dropped off onto his shoulder, her breath soft on the lapel of his shirt.


	5. Mornings After and First Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the love!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel. I own Sadie and her friends!

Bucky woke shortly before dawn. Roused from uneasy dreams, Bucky was temporarily disoriented unsure if he was wandering through a version of Brooklyn he didn't recognize or if he was still in Sicily. Hard earth supported his body which was stiff from sleeping in a seating position all night, reminding Bucky that he was nowhere close to his bed in New York. There was, however, a beautiful woman near him as he recalled the previous night's events. Fighting the grin that pulled at his lips, Bucky wondered if Nurse Sadie Reid had gotten any sleep at all after her first taste of life on the front line.

Opening his eyes, Bucky was still surrounded by the cover of the rapidly waning darkness. If he squinted hard enough, he could almost see the first rays of the morning sun peeking through the half-destroyed trees. Inhaling deep, he caught the unpleasant combination of burnt wood, charred earth, and sweat. Bucky could hear the soft rustle of fabric and two low voices. Sadie was crouching next to Private Meyers. In the steadily brightening morning, Meyers' face was just visible. His eyes were screwed up tight and his mouth drawn into a line, the skin surrounding his lips unnaturally pale. Dark circles clung to the undersides of his eyes, further highlighted by his bloodless cheeks. Sweat beaded at his forehead and Bucky knew there was no faking the unbelievable pain he must have been in.

"It hurts so bad, Nurse Reid," he said through gritted teeth.

Sadie's eagle eyes didn't miss a symptom or sign of Meyers' suffering. "I know it does," she said. Bucky enjoyed her southern lilt, but found it especially soothing when she used it for calming purposes. Carefully, Sadie pulled the bandage away from Meyers' wound and pursed her lips. Clinical and serious was how Bucky remembered Sadie from the NYPOE and the Queen Victoria; it turned out that she was no different when dug into a foxhole in the middle of war-torn Italy. "The good news is the bleeding stopped sometime in the night. I'm sure that we can call in a jeep to get us back to the field hospital."

"I've got it," said Bucky. Both Sadie and Meyers started. Pivoting her head to look at him, Sadie's mouth opened softly and though it was dark, Bucky swore he saw a blush swirl into her cheeks.

"Sergeant Barnes, I didn't know you were awake. But, yes, calling in a jeep would be great, thank you," she said.

Bucky couldn't decipher the expression on her face. She seemed somewhere between worried, exhausted, scared, and irritated. Perhaps it was all of these things as he pushed himself out of his foxhole and hurried to another containing the radioman. Crouching low and keeping his helmet on, Bucky tapped the kid awake.

"Hey, radio the 80th to send a jeep. We've got a wounded guy that needs to go out," he muttered.

A head popped up from the next closest foxhole while the radioman started up the radio. Lieutenant McAllister's face came into focus as Bucky shifted his weight to look at him. "Everything alright?"

"Private Meyers isn't doing so hot. Nurse Reid needs to get him back to the field hospital." Lieutenant McAllister braced his weight with his hands, hauling himself out of his foxhole. The radioman was hard at work relaying the message when McAllister told Bucky he wanted to see Meyers himself. Bucky waited for McAllister to sling his rifle over his shoulder.

"Jeep's on its way, sir," said the radioman to Bucky. He thanked the kid and then hurried back towards his foxhole with McAllister.

"Everything else go okay? With Nurse Reid being there?"

"Fine, she took care of Meyers and hopefully got a little bit of sleep," said Bucky.

"Hell of a thing to do, going in the runner's place."

Bucky shrugged. "She said one of her commanding officers ordered her to go after the runner choked."

When they came back, Bucky found Sadie had managed to help Meyers into a more comfortable position. McAllister crouched right at the edge of the foxhole and Meyers tilted his head back in order to see his officer. "Hey Lieutenant," he said groggily.

"How're you feeling, Private?"

"Been better but I've got the best damn medical care in the whole army right here," he said and fondly patted Sadie's hand which rest on her knee. Sadie frowned slightly, arching a manicured eyebrow.

"I gave him morphine," she admitted.

Meyers was indeed somewhere else, his body slumped slightly as his muscles continued to relax. Sadie had threaded the morphine syrette through his field jacket lapel. "Is he going to be alright?" Asked McAllister, turning his attention to Sadie.

Bucky watched as her eyes landed on McAllister and grew wide. It occurred to Bucky that she'd likely never seen the Lieutenant in any sort of light before and was just now appreciating the man's All-American qualities. Something akin to annoyance bristled in the pit of Bucky's stomach as Sadie's mouth opened a fraction before shutting rapidly to form her thoughts.

"He'll be fine," she said at length, casting a pitying glance to Meyers who was dozing lightly at her side. "He just needs rest and better attention than I can give him here."

McAllister nodded. "Sergeant Barnes radioed in a jeep for you, it should be here any minute. Here, let me give you a hand out."

The good Lieutenant then held out one of his large hands and Sadie grasped it. Her long, narrow fingers were practically dwarfed by McAllister's but he had no problem pulling Sadie out of the foxhole. Dawn was upon them now and Bucky found himself trying not to openly stare at Sadie. In their previous encounters, Sadie's hair was expertly curled and pinned away from her face to reveal porcelain smooth skin, lightly winged eyeliner, and cherry red lips. Seeing any grown woman makeup free was jarring to Bucky; most of the girls he knew never left the house without a full face after they reached a certain age.

But the morning sun did justice to Sadie that coat of makeup could never do. Somehow, Bucky had missed the smattering of freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose. Without the dark eyeliner distracting him, Bucky could see a smoky ring that looked the outside of her vivid grey irises. Her full lips were petal pink with a natural angel's bow and were set above her stubborn chin. Flyaways of dark hair escaped her updo, worming their way out from beneath her helmet and framing her beautiful face.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said kindly and promptly ignored him in favor of her patient. Lieutenant McAllister's face fell slightly, as though he were expecting more accolades for his moment of gentlemanliness. Bucky fought the urge to smirk and instead knelt next to the foxhole.

"Ready to get out of here, Meyers?" He asked.

"Yes," said Meyers, his voice significantly relaxed in light of the morphine.

Sadie's profile came into his peripheral vision. "Try not to jostle his shoulder too much," she said. McAllister helped Bucky get Meyers out of the foxhole. The kid swayed uncertainly on his feet before he took a sideway step and stumbled right into Bucky. Catching Meyers, Bucky kept a strong arm around his waist.

"I've got to get up to the front of the line to see what's going on down in the town," said McAllister. "Nurse Reid, I can't thank you enough for all your help last night. I hope we can meet again under better circumstances."

Bucky cringed internally. Did he sound that bad when he tried to flirt with women? Sadie, like any other well brought up southerner, took McAllister's flattery in stride with a smile and a delicate handshake, despite the fact that her hands were flecked with dried blood and dirt. "Certainly, Lieutenant. It was a pleasure meeting you, all things considered."

"Sergeant Barnes, make sure that Nurse Reid and Private Meyers get on their jeep back to the hospital."

"Yes, sir," he said, not that he had much of a choice in the matter. Sadie's arm came to rest above Bucky's around Meyer's waist as she took a spot on the private's other side.

"Thought you could use some help," she offered.

Together, they set off, half-dragging and half-pushing Meyers through the narrow tree line towards the rendezvous point. Meyers was still mostly incoherent and for a while they walked in silence, too focused on their charge to say anything. Bucky reflected on the small miracle that he'd survived the night and the strange circumstances that went along with it. "Did you get any sleep?"

Sadie's question startled him, derailing his train of thought. "A couple of hours. What about you?"

"Roughly the same. I woke up once or twice though. I don't think I'll ever get used to sleeping in foxholes."

Bucky squinted into the daylight as the trees thinned out and the blazing morning began to announce itself in all its glory. "Me either. The room service is terrible."

"So is that joke," she teased.

Bucky grinned. "Sorry, my sense of humor isn't functional until after I've had my morning coffee."

"I know the feeling. Try being pleasant first thing in the morning to a hospital full of patients who'd rather be dead than stuck in a bed."

Bucky liked the way Sadie said 'try,' drawing out the vowel low and slow. Now that he knew her name, a new curiosity burned a hole in his brain. "Alabama," he said suddenly. "How can you not be from Alabama."

"'Bama?" Sadie repeated and he heard the mild amusement return to her voice. She was apparently immune to his charm, but at least Sadie had a sense of humor. "Alabama, now that's a good guess, Buck Sergeant."

"And?"

"You're dead wrong. But it's still a good guess."

Bucky opened his mouth to retort back but stopped when they came out of the trees. The charred remains of the aide station were still smoking from previous night's explosion. A warm breeze stirred up the air and sent the overpowering smell of burnt flesh towards them. Sadie raised a hand to cover her nose.

"Good heavens," whispered Sadie. As one, they lowered Meyers to sit up against a tree. "I should check and see if there are any salvageable medical supplies."

"Someone should get dog tags," muttered Bucky. He kept his rifle at the ready and the two of them crossed the open stretch of land to the blackened remains of the aide tent, crates and men who attended it. The destroyed jeep was a twisted, horrifying mess.

"I can't believe that human beings are capable of doing this to each other," she whispered picking her way through the wreckage. Bucky privately agreed with her and silently hoped he would never be capable of doing something quite this terrible to another person. He knew he wouldn't escape the war without getting blood on his hands, but the pivotal question was how much? Frowning, he crouched next to the scorched remains of a person and started to try and discern his dog tags. Something caught his eye.

Switching gears, Bucky reached out to touch the edge of a piece of shell. Fortunately it was cool enough to touch and he grasped it, pulling it from the unforgiving earth. For the most part it was blackened and mangled but he could see part of it was somewhat undamaged. In shining red paint, he could see half of a circle and within that circle he saw half of a red skull with tentacles coming out beneath it.

"What is that?" Sadie asked, appearing at his side.

"Don't know. This never came up in boot camp when we learned the Nazi symbols."

"Whoever it is, they did a number out here. There's nothing left to salvage," said Sadie grimly.

A distant rumbling diverted them from the piece of shell in Bucky's hand. The jeep steadily drew closer and closer until it trundled to a halt in front of them. Sadie gladly collapsed in the front seat while the driver and runner helped Bucky collect Meyers, securing him to the litter on the back of the jeep. Bucky paused at the side of the jeep. Sadie gave him a tired, evaluating glance.

"Thank you for your help," she said at length. "It was an interesting night."

"One I hope we never repeat, no offense. I don't ever want to see you so close to the front line again."

Sadie stifled a yawn. "That makes two of us, Buck Sergeant." She suddenly turned very serious. "Take care of yourself. I don't want to see you in the field hospital after you all take the town."

Up until that point, Bucky had completely forgotten that F company was due to take the small town that had been the source of their torture most of the night. "I'll do my best, Nurse Sadie Reid."

She gave him a rare, full smile, her nose wrinkling slightly. Bucky waited and waved once, watching as the jeep sped away from immediate danger and towards the field hospital. Once, Sadie turned around, at first to check on Meyers. But then, she raised her gaze to Bucky, giving him a half-wave before the jeep disappeared and Bucky was alone again. For a long moment, Bucky considered what he should do before he grabbed the piece of shell and jogged back to the line so he could pass the word to Lieutenant McAllister. Perhaps he knew what the red skull insignia meant.

X X X

Sadie was glad for the morning air that rushed past her face, cooling the blush in her cheeks. From her spot at the front of the jeep she could see the dazzling sunrise, cresting over the craggy land and lighting up a perfect cerulean sky. With the jeep moving at such a fast clip, she couldn't feel the heat that would be oppressive within a few hours' time. So, she took the aviator sunglasses she'd shoved in her musette bag, a gift from her father's best friend, and put them over her eyes for the drive.

Her driver was silent, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to a tune she couldn't hear. Perhaps he, too, was reeling from the night before. Though if Sadie had to hazard a guess, his night wasn't half as bizarre as hers had been. In a thousand years she'd never expected to end up on the front lines, but she'd survived her first night in Italy there. The shelling went on intermittently through most of the night until roughly two hours before dawn when she finally fell asleep. She'd woken up from a series of blurred and unremarkable dreams to find she'd dozed right off onto Bucky's shoulder. Even now the memory of it caused the blush to return to her cheeks, beating uncomfortably.

What would her mother think if she knew? Or her father? More importantly, what did Sadie think? She'd never spent a night with a man in any capacity and now she'd spent the night in a foxhole with two. Against her will, her traitorous mind drifted to how comfortable Bucky's shoulder had been beneath her cheek, set at the right height and firm without being too hard. She'd moved before he woke, unsure if she could survive the embarrassment if he'd caught her.

Fortunately, she'd had Private Meyers to worry about and taking care of him had saved her from any further compromising situations. Bucky had been a saint though, even she could admit that to herself. Without his help, dressing Meyers' wound and caring for him through the night would have been infinitely more difficult, as would have getting off the front line. Sadie found through their brief snippets of conversation, that Bucky was remarkably perceptive, despite his inability to guess her home state. He'd even made her laugh a couple of times, talking about basic training and explaining how he'd ended up the Staff Sergeant of one of F Company's rifle squads. Sadie held no romantic designs towards Bucky, but she didn't mind the idea of having another friend, even if they would hardly see one another.

Well, Sadie hoped for Bucky's sake that they would hardly see each other. There really was only one reason why he would see her in the future and her stomach rebelled at the thought. Her thoughts turned down a new avenue, revisiting the aid station and what was now left of it.

As part of their training all of the nurses in the Army Nursing Corps had taken special classes about recognizing different types of wounds – bullets, bayonets, bombs, and more. They'd been trained to know how different caliber bullets caused damage and the types of wounds to expect in the field from various artillery rounds and types of combat. Sadie had spent hours pouring over the photographs, descriptions, and treatment methods for wounds caused by aerial assaults. Yet, in all of the manuals and training material she'd never seen any evidence that a bomb could cause the kind of fire that was hot enough to disintegrate flesh and char bone.

Sadie told herself that the aid station had been a direct hit, perhaps from a low flying aircraft. But that didn't explain how narrow the blast radius had been or that the crates she'd seen were nothing more than sawdust beneath her boots. Even the jeep was destroyed beyond recognition, and that was nothing to say of the bodies she'd seen, so destroyed that Bucky couldn't recover their dog tags. Neither of them knew the half of the symbol on the shell, but the red skull and tentacles left a bad taste in Sadie's mouth.

Her thoughts kept her occupied until the 80th field hospital came in sight. From a distance, Sadie could see a few people milling back and forth. In her entire life she thought she'd never be happy to see a collection of olive drab tents. But she was borderline ecstatic to see her makeshift home. Exhaustion dragged her whole body down towards the earth, beckoning her to roll out of the jeep and sleep where she fell.

The jeep slowed down upon approach and Sadie sat up a little straighter when three figures outside of the main tent came into focus. Betty and Evelyn took off running towards the jeep as soon as it came to rolling stop.

"Sadie!" They both shouted as one.

Sadie barely had enough time to get both of her feet on the ground when her friends collided with her. "Thank God you're okay!"

"We were so worried!"

Betty and Evelyn's shouts garbled together as they became a tangle of limbs and a blur of hair colors. Still, Sadie was elated to see them both and she managed to find the strength to wrap her arms around them.

"I'm fine," she promised.

"Doctor Holmes will be happy to see you too, he's been so upset with himself, ordering you out to the front when that runner went nuts." Evelyn said, holding onto Sadie's dirty hand.

"Things didn't go exactly according to plan, but I promise I'm okay," she said and looked over Betty's shoulder to see Doctor Holmes slumped in relief. He gave her a warm smile which Sadie returned in full measure. At length, Betty and Evelyn relinquished Sadie and went to help the runner bring Meyers into the main tent. Sadie fell into step with Doctor Holmes as they followed.

"I think apologies are in order Nurse Reid," said Doctor Holmes, his voice weary. Sadie wondered if any of the hospital staff had gotten any sleep at all. "When I sent you in the runner's place I never imagined," he broke off uncomfortably. "I can assure you it won't happen again."

Sadie patted the doctor's shoulder. "It's really alright, the first-hand experience on the front can only help me be better," she said, trying to make him feel better.

Doctor Holmes stopped and placed both of his hands on Sadie's shoulders, facing her. Seriousness clouded his face and he fixed her with a beady eye. "Nurse Reid, you very nearly died last night. We all thought you had when word came back to us that the aid station had been bombed. We didn't find out you were alive until this morning. So please, accept my apology and do not make light of the situation."

Sadie was stunned. They'd all thought she had died? "I won't, Doctor," she promised. "And I accept your apology. Now, what can I do?"

"Go get something eat and clean up. Your patients have been taken care of and once you're refreshed you can attend to Private Meyers and help us prepare for the incoming wounded. We're expecting a fresh wave once the 107th moves forward."

Sadie wouldn't turn down the opportunity to rest up and she hastily exited the main hospital tent before someone could stop her. The section of women's tents were set up close to the main tent, but clearly marked off with signs warding off the men. Sadie's mobile abode was home to nothing more than a cot, her bedroll, and the musette bag with the few personal items she carried with her. Once inside her tent with a basin of water, she pulled her helmet off and washed her hands. It wasn't until she sat down on the edge of her cot did Sadie realize she was shaking.

The impact of her night finally hit with the force of a speeding train. Her friends thought she'd died and now that she looked back on it, Sadie was remarkably lucky to be alive. Whether it was God himself or another greater force that put Sadie in the tree line with Bucky and Lieutenant McAllister, Sadie didn't know and she didn't care. In her mind's eye she saw the charred remains of the aid station, she could have been one of those bodies, dead before she could have done any good. Dropping her head between her knees, Sadie tried to stop the dizziness that caused the green world around her to spin and her stomach to tie itself into knots. A wave of nausea rolled over Sadie and she barely had enough time to claw her way out of her tent at the edge of the women's camp before the contents of her stomach came up in a violent way. Acid burned her throat as she continued to vomit until nothing remained but the hollow ache in her chest and the cold sweat that clung to her lower back.

Sadie waited until she was certain she was finished and then trudged back to her tent, wiping her mouth off with her sleeve as she went. It seemed inevitable, thought Sadie miserably; if she'd escaped sickness on the troop ship then something would get to her sooner or later. Personally, she felt her horror at the gruesome reality of combat was a pretty solid reason for losing her lunch. But it wasn't a reason to lay down and quit and so Sadie brushed her teeth and washed up as best as she could before dressing in a clean uniform after doing her best to wash the stains out of the other and hanging it to dry.

Evelyn found her some time later in the mess, sitting alone and watching the other hospital personnel as they milled about. Dropping onto the rough bench next to Sadie, she stretched her arms over her head, yawning as she did.

"Private Meyers is going to be fine, Doc Holmes says the work you did in the field kept him from slowly bleeding to death."

The instant relief Sadie felt went a long way to calming her still upset stomach. "Good, I was worried this morning when he started to go so pale."

"So is it true that you spent the night in his foxhole?"

Sadie pulled a face, normally it was Betty making comments that could make a sailor blush. "You don't have to make it sound so salacious," she muttered grumpily.

"Oh, sorry, let me try again," said Evelyn in a deadpan voice. "Is it true that you spent the night in a foxhole with Private Meyers and Sergeant Barnes? There's really no better way to phrase it, Sade."

Sadie scowled all the same. "It's true. After the aid station was hit all transportation between the line and the remaining aid stations and the field hospital were cut off. I was ordered into a foxhole to continue tending to Meyers as best as I could. There's really nothing more to it."

Sadie didn't want to tell Evelyn about her small conversations with Bucky or about waking up with her head on his shoulder. As much as Sadie loved Evelyn she knew that her friend would make a bigger deal than necessary out of those facts. What was the point in stirring up trouble when there really wasn't anything to stir up? Yet, another far less rational part of Sadie wanted to keep the small facts they'd revealed to each other to herself, as though they were secrets to be fiercely guarded. Sadie knew it was stupid, everything they'd talked about was either related to PFC Meyers or completely mundane. Even then, she didn't really want Evelyn to know.

"Betty and I were so scared," said Evelyn suddenly, in a hushed voice.

Sadie looked up, lips parted in soft surprise. Reaching out, Sadie curled her fingers around Evelyn's and squeezed her hand tightly. "So was I."

They sat in comfortable silence while Sadie finished eating. An understanding passed between them that words could never express. Instead both women started mentally preparing for what was to come. The 107th would move forward within the next day which promised a whole new level of hell. Sadie thought of F Company, sitting in the cover of the trees, waiting to take the small town just below their position. She wondered how Bucky prepared himself and his rifle squad for the coming engagement. Absently, she rubbed her fingers over her father's wedding ring as she thought of the Brooklyn boy, far away from home and readying himself to get blood on his hands for the first time.

X X X

Never in Bucky's entire life did he think there would come a time when he preferred a hole in the ground to being in the open daylight. Yet, it was all Bucky wanted as he pressed his back up against a rough brick wall of a building on the East side of Mazzarino. F Company's platoons had split off for the main assault with Third platoon flanking to the East while First charged straight down the center and Second flanked the West. As expected, gunfire came in heavy and Bucky knew if he looked out over the small field that stretched between their previous position and the town he would see more than one body left on the hard ground at an unnatural angle.

Currently, Bucky along with his radio man and one of his squad members were pinned down in their position by a sniper. Corporal Frank O'Connell, a red-faced kid from south Philadelphia popped his head around the corner to try and get a better look.

"Can you see him?" Hissed Bucky.

Frank pulled back, wide-eyed. A bullet zipped through the air with a whistle, passing right where Frank's head had been only a millisecond before. The blood momentarily drained from his face and he swore colorfully.

"I can't get an eye on him, but he sure as shit knows where we are."

Bucky frowned and hit the radioman's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Radio over to first platoon let's see if they've got eyes on him."

Private Douglas Lovitz nodded and got to work. "Third Platoon to First, over."

Seconds later Bucky heard the crackle of a familiar voice on the radio. "This is First Platoon, nice day we're having here!"

"Dugan," said Bucky beyond relieved to hear his friend was still alive. "What's your position?"

"Good to hear from you too, Buck," said Dugan, though Bucky could hear the stress in Dugan's voice. "We can't do shit until someone takes out that sniper."

"You got eyes on him?"

"Yeah but no clean shot, the bastard's holed up in the church steeple." Bucky handed the phone back to Private Lovitz and motioned for O'Connell to move so he could take his place. Crouching low, Bucky turned out. He had a split second to survey the area. The church was further away than he'd expected, but before he moved back into cover he could clearly see movement in the steeple through the half-opened shutters. Bucky felt the bullet zing past before he heard the shot ring out, missing him by inches.

Reaching out, he took the receiver from Lovitz. "I've got a clean shot, but he's locked onto us."

"Leave that to me," said O'Connell suddenly. Sweat beaded at his brow as he looked across the cobblestone lane to the relative safety of the building on the other side.

"You sure about this?" Asked Bucky.

"Yeah," said O'Connell, but he didn't look even remotely confident. "Just don't miss."

Bucky didn't think, he wouldn't let himself. Giving O'Connell a nod, he moved into position, ready to shove the butt of his rifle into his shoulder and fire in the shortest amount of time possible. It was just like shooting school bullies with spitballs across the classroom, he told himself. Holding up his hand, he counted down from three and then popped out just as O'Connell took off sprinting towards the building.

It happened instantly, but to Bucky it felt like a lifetime. He felt the butt of his rifle press against his body and he raised it, zeroing in on the sniper. His finger depressed the trigger and he barely felt the recoil when his rifle went off. The pop in his ears rang and at the same time he saw the sniper in the window start at the impact before going down, his own shot missing O'Connell by several feet. O'Connell had reached the other side, his back pressed against the wall, chest heaving. Raising a shaky hand, he gave Bucky a thumbs up.

Bucky had thought a lot about what it was going to be like, taking another life. Maybe it would hit him later, he thought as he let out a sigh and gave the command to keep pushing forward. In that moment he only felt relief that he hadn't missed and O'Connell made it to the other side unscathed. The hard part was over, he told himself as he ran, crouching low beneath an open window. He pulled the pin out of a grenade and lobbed it through the window, waiting until it went off before kicking the door in to clear the building. There was no time to dwell on the life he'd taken.

All that mattered were the men with him and staying alive long enough to see the next morning. Bucky left one building and move on to another, leading his squad on the seemingly endless charge.

X X X

Nearly two thousand miles north of Mazzarino, Agent Peggy Carter placed her hands on her hips, staring down at a massive tactical map of Europe. Only hours earlier the air raid sirens had driven most of London underground and Peggy back to the SSR bunker. Static voices poured from the radio in the far corner, mixing into the still air with the din of typewriters and SSR personnel milling about. Across the large table, a young man pushed several small models across the depictions of Tunisia to Sicily. Peggy tried not to let her disappointment show as she noted there were still no markers to indicate HYRDA on the board.

Illusive was the best word Peggy could come up with to describe the organization they were chasing. A very large ghost across the face of Europe, HYRDA had escaped their detection, and thus far their efforts to find it had failed. There were whispers of course, rumors that spread across the countryside of towns being practically incinerated and of suspicious disappearances throughout the continent. But so far, the SSR hadn't seen a wisp of concrete evidence as to HYRDA's bases of operations or the fruit of its research.

Peggy liked to think of herself as a patient woman, but even she was feeling the strain of weeks spent chasing phantoms. Pursing her red lips, she stared at the empty spaces of German-occupied Europe and wondered how pervasive HYRDA's operations really were.

"Agent Carter!" Came a booming voice. "Just the woman I was looking for!"

Colonel Phillips strode towards her from the direction of the radio room, bearing a sheet of paper in his hand. "Sir," she said standing at attention.

"At ease Agent," said Phillips, waving her down. "Looks like we finally have some good news. An aid station attached to the 107th infantry division was hit during an air raid two nights ago."

Peggy's scowl deepened. She respected Colonel Phillips quite a lot, but the man had a very frustrating habit of stopping short of giving her all the necessary information. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but how does that qualify as good news?"

He handed her the sheet of paper and plowed on while she devoured the information. "Looks like part of the shell that hit it survived the blast, the man that found it described the shell as being painted with a red symbol of a skull with,"

"Tentacles," Peggy finished, reading the report.

"That came off the front line before the 107th moved forward and military intelligence passed it on to us."

Finally, thought Peggy. After weeks of stumbling blindly in the dark they had a concrete lead. "Does intelligence know where the planes came from?"

"Not a clue, we're trying to confirm if there were more shells recovered."

"Still," said Peggy, walking around to get a closer look at Sicily. The 107th Infantry was among the smaller, more elite combat divisions, comprised entirely of men who volunteered rather than take their chances in the draft. "HYRDA clearly doesn't want Patton to reach mainland Italy."

"No, it does not," agreed Phillips, emphasizing each word.

Peggy skimmed over the intelligence report. It wasn't totally unbelievable that HYDRA was operating in Italy or at least sending its weaponry there. The allied forces were still months away from a mainland invasion through France. Italy, however, was an entirely different story. If everything went according to plan the Sicilian campaign would be over in the matter of a month, setting the stage for a massive invasion to multiple points on the Italian coast with air support bombing strategic German strongholds while the ground infantry landed on the beaches. Colonel Phillips had pointed out that it was all a prelude to France, something which Peggy didn't doubt in the least.

She stared at the map and all of the markers clustered together on the tiny island of Sicily. It was the strangest chessboard she'd ever seen, but it was a chessboard nonetheless. She'd learned how to play from her older brother, Michael, and recalled him explaining to her why some pawns always had to be sacrificed in order to win the game. Each of the markers had specific moves they could make and served their role, many of them pawns to the greater cause. All to reach checkmate, wherever that was and however it would happen.

"What's our next move, then?" Peggy asked, but she already knew the answer.

"Pack light, Agent Carter. We're headed south."


	6. Tour Guides and Gossip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your feedback! I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story so far. 
> 
> This chapter contains one of my favorite scenes in the entire fic!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel - I do own Sadie and her friends and all of Bucky's comrades that you don't recognize!

Bucky turned his face up to the sky, letting the summer sun warm his skin as its rays peeked through the spotty clouds. He sat with his back propped up against the side of a fountain in the heart of Messina. Sicily's summer was reaching its zenith and he had shed his field jacket and unbuttoned the top couple of buttons of his shirt, hoping that the surprisingly cool breeze blowing through the square would help keep him cool. He'd only come from the showers an hour earlier, his first in days, and Bucky wasn't really interested in immediately ruining it. So he'd found the best patch of shade he could and settled down to write a letter home to his family.

His concentration was shattered shortly after when Dum Dum Dugan, Corporal John Nixon, Corporal Frank O'Connell, and Private Douglas Lovitz came trickling along one by one. They made up quite the motley crew, sprawled out next to the non-functioning fountain, their uniforms in various states of disarray. Dugan was shuffling a deck of cards, trying to corral them all into a game. A cigarette hung from his mouth as he reclined on the stone steps, his bowler hat perched upon his red head. He and O'Connell had been arguing for the past fifteen minutes about whether Boston or Philly had the best looking Irish girls. It wasn't a fight Bucky cared to wade into, choosing instead to listen with some measure of amusement to O'Connell and Dugan take jabs at each other's hometown.

Douglas Lovitz lay on his back while he napped in sun, arm thrown over his head. On Bucky's other side, John Nixon settled down with a tin bowl of whatever the field kitchen was serving that day. It looked like stew, but it was a far cry from the stew Bucky grew up with. Nixon, however, didn't seem to mind in the slightest as he shoved his metal spoon into the sludge and took a massive bite. Almost immediately he made a face and started coughing, nearly unable to swallow. Nixon set the bowl down and cast a dirty look at its contents, as though the stew itself had insulted Nixon personally.

"Christ, this food is shit. Back home if my mama knew I was eating this garbage she'd have six fits from Christmas."

Dugan's eyebrows rose and he shared a look with Bucky, betraying his extreme amusement at John Nixon's exclamation. Bucky's grin widened to a near-mocking state, but he chose not to say anything to his friend. A good old boy from a pindot town in South Carolina, Corporal John Nixon was chock-full of what Dugan called 'folksy backwoods wisdom.' He had a quirky saying for just about any situation, always in his low and slow southern drawl.

Dugan took a drag of his cigarette and blew a puff of smoke upwards. "What the hell does that even mean, Nix? Six fits from Christmas, I swear to God you southerners just make shit up to confuse us city-folk."

Nixon laughed, waggling his dark eyebrows humorously. "I could and you'd never know," he teased. "But it means she'd throw a fit. I don't want to brag, but my mama? She's one of the best cooks in the whole town."

"Oh yeah? What kind of stuff does she cook?" Asked O'Connell after he lit a cigarette.

The faraway expression on Nixon's face reminded Bucky of a little kid thinking with longing for Christmas morning. "All kinds of food, shrimp and grist, roast oysters, peach cobbler, but her specialty is Frogmore stew."

"What the fuck is that?" O'Connell asked, giving his friend a dubious look.

"It's a big shrimp boil," said Nixon fondly. "The women in my neighborhood get together with giant pots and put shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes, and onions all in and boil it up till everything's cooked just right. Then they dump it on long tables in the backyard and we eat with our hands till we're full as ticks."

Dugan snorted, rolling his eyes in the direction of the sky. Bucky shook his head. "That's disgusting, Nix."

Nixon scowled at Bucky's observation. "If we get through this y'all ought to come down for a visit. My mama'll cook Frogmore stew and you'll be singing a different tune."

Frank O'Connell waved Nixon off. "Forget your Frogmore stew. The first thing I'm gonna do when I get home is get a job at my old man's butcher's shop, marry Margaret O'Fallon, and pop out as many Frankie juniors as fast as possible." As he spoke he used his hands to form the outline of a curvy woman's figure, grinning in a knowing sort of way.

John Nixon started going on about how he planned to get home and start working on a fishing boat and buy a nice little house any girl would love to call home. Their musings woke Doug Lovitz who started waxing elegant about his girl back home who sent him perfume scented letters smudged with her red lipstick. He pulled one out to show off to the guys, only to shove it back in his pocket a moment later, red-faced when Dugan tried to snatch it so he could read the contents aloud to everyone. The others tried to tease Dum Dum about his lack of female companionship, but the Irishman was having none of it.

"I'm no woman's man," he said proudly. "It'd take a special lady to manage me."

"More like crazy if you ask me," said O'Connell. He ducked just in time, narrowly avoiding Dugan's swipe to the back of his head. Bucky laughed with the others. "What about you Buck? You got a girl back home?"

Bucky raked his fingers through his hair and made a face. Before he could answer Doug Lovitz clapped both of his hands on Bucky's shoulders, giving him a firm shake. "This handsome devil? I bet he's got a whole bunch of girls leaving flowers at his door and crying into their pillows at night."

Arching an eyebrow, Bucky titled his head to the side to look at Lovitz whose shit-eating grin was a mile wide. Bucky shrugged his hands off and shook his head. "No girl. All I left behind was my family." He stopped mid-sentence, having nearly added that he'd left behind Steve too.

Bucky's chest tightened. Like most men, he didn't like to think about home. This was especially true when it came to his parents and Steve. Sometimes Bucky found himself sitting in his foxhole laughing to himself about something stupid and he'd turn to tell Steve, only to find that he wasn't there. It had taken Bucky a while to realize that for all Steve's physical failings, he should have been there. They should have been sharing a foxhole together and the fact that they weren't was a particularly sore blow to Bucky.

"Yeah, but I bet you weren't shot of dates back home, were you?"

O'Connell's question snapped Bucky back to the present conversation. Deciding it would be worth letting a little slip to escape a whole lot of grief, Bucky put on his best smirk. "I definitely wasn't leaving the dance halls alone, if that's what you mean."

Doug slapped Bucky's back while his friends congratulated him on his apparent successes. Bucky took it in stride but caught Dugan's eye once, giving his friend a look that suggested the guys they spent time with were completely full of shit. As they'd spoken about home, and food, and girls, the sun began to move towards the Western skyline. Though there were plenty of hours of daylight left, Bucky couldn't help but feel time was running faster than usual again. In a few short days the 107th would be boarding landing craft, headed for the sandy beachheads at Salerno on the Italian mainland. Every time Bucky considered what horrors awaited them in Italy, he wished time would slow down to a grinding halt. Nobody said it, but he knew that the others felt the same.

After taking Messina in a bloody battle, the men of F Company had hoped to earn a respite from the front line. But none of the men were stupid enough to believe they'd receive relief. Messina sat on the very tip of the Sicilian coast and everyone knew it was the last step before invading mainland Italy. In preparation for the landing, the 107th had been set with memorizing detailed maps of the beaches, learning the potential sites for German guns, and memorizing each and every company's objective to the letter. By the time F Company would land on the beachhead at Salerno, Buck would be able to do not only his job, but every other job of the men in the entire division.

In the gaps between preparations, the men of F Company amused themselves by watching the ebb and flow of military operations through Messina. High ranking officers drove through in their jeeps and set up intelligence and Battalion HQ's. Mail to and from home started flowing regularly again, as did supplies that were growing scarce on the front line. Much to Bucky and the other's chagrin, replacements arrived, filling the holes left by wounded and killed soldiers. Bucky himself had two replacements in his rifle squad, one for each of the men he'd lost in two separate maneuvers to take towns along their march through Sicily. They were alright enough, but Bucky was scared that their first taste of combat would be crawling up a beach while the enemy looked down.

Jeeps rumbled through the main square, taking everyone's attention away from the cards and bad food. All of them stopped talking, choosing instead to watch the convoy roll by. The olive jeeps were the same as any other army jeep, but Bucky didn't recognize the insignia spray painted on the side. An eagle in the center of a circle, looped by words he couldn't read from far away.

"I'll be damned," said Dugan with a low whistle.

"You know who they are?" Bucky asked, sitting up a little straighter. But nobody heart him and nobody was paying attention to him. They were all transfixed on the lead jeep.

The first vehicle contained what looked like a high ranking officer, an older man wearing a peaked cap and aviator sunglasses. That in and of itself didn't surprise Bucky. It was the brunette woman riding in the back of the jeep that provided the biggest shock. The strange woman cast an appraising glance around the square, drinking in the sight of soldiers littered about the grounds. She wore a full face of makeup, right down to the cherry red lipstick. It was a foreign sight to Bucky. Women were a scarce sight these days. The few women they'd seen in the Sicilian towns wore no makeup and neither did the nurses at the field hospital. Compared to the crumbling buildings and monochromatic landscape, she looked like a movie star.

"Damn, you know I'd almost forgotten what a woman looks like," said O'Connell.

Bucky's gaze never faltered from the SSR jeeps. "She's a real looker," agreed Lovitz. "I'd give my eyeteeth for a shot at a broad like that."

"That broad could probably put a bullet right between your eyes while that jeep is moving," said Dugan with a cocky sort of grin. He made the shape of a gun with his fingers and pretended to shoot the air, making a gunfire sound as he did.

"No way," said Lovitz sarcastically in disbelief.

"Believe it, Dougie. Those jeeps are with the SSR," said Dugan.

"SS-what?" O'Connell asked dumbly. Next to him Lovitz let out a low whistle while he eyed the brunette.

"Strategic Scientific Reserve," said Dugan. "I heard Lieutenant McAllister talking about it to Captain Woodworth after the aid station got shelled outside of Mazzarino that first night. Apparently it's supposed to be some high brow top-secret unit for the allies. I overheard Woodworth saying that the SSR has been sucking army intelligence dry for information on Nazi weaponry."

Bucky frowned. The front jeep passed and he watched as the woman disappeared out of sight. "What the hell are they doing here?"

Dugan shrugged. "No clue," he muttered. "But it can't be good."

"Who cares, I'll take the sight of a gorgeous woman any day, no matter why she's around," said Lovitz.

Nixon snorted with laughter. "You act like there's not a field hospital chock full of nurses just around the corner."

Lovitz grinned. "Yeah but none of them have the time to curl their hair and put on lipstick."

Bucky's mind drifted to Sadie's bright grey eyes and petal pink lips. He hadn't seen her since the morning after she'd spent the night tending to Meyers in his foxhole. Even without makeup she'd been quite pretty, wish wisps of curls framing her face and her long eyelashes brushing her cheeks every time she blinked. In many ways she'd been even more striking without makeup, allowing the early morning sun to highlight her white smile. Besides, Bucky thought, his heart quickening a beat, Sadie's looks had almost nothing to do with what made her so striking.

Leaning back, Bucky closed his eyes and continued to soak up the afternoon sun. "You're an idiot, Lovitz," he said much to the amusement of his friends.

X X X

Two days after the SSR rolled through the center of town, Bucky ended up sitting in one of the last rows of chairs in a meeting hall in Messina. At the very end of the long, narrow room, a screen stood while a projector hummed along loudly. Through the haze of cigarette smoke, Bucky could see the moving being played for the soldiers, but he wasn't really paying attention. Around him, his friends spoke in loud whispers, more distracting than if they'd been speaking at regular volume. The group of them, many of whom had already seen this particular feature, were mouthing along with the lines and mocking the actors. Bucky grinned at their sarcasm and joined in a few times, but for the most part he was waiting for Dugan to return from a training a couple of his replacements.

The two men had plans to work their way over to the 80th Field Hospital to see two of their riflemen who had been wounded when F Company helped take Messina. Bucky hadn't had a chance to see Private Anselm Miller yet, despite promising the kid he would drop by. Miller was fortunate to only take a chunk of shrapnel to his arm and was staying at the field hospital to recover until F Company headed for Salerno. Bucky liked Miller, he was a good shot and was stubborn to the last.

A hand fell on his shoulder and Bucky looked up to see Dugan crouching. "Let's go," he said, jerking his head towards the exit.

Glad to be away from the dense smoke, Bucky got to his feet and followed Dugan into the late afternoon. A slight cloud cover had rolled in the day before, providing blessed relief from the sun. Dugan walked next to Bucky in amiable silence, his bowler had tipped off slightly to the side. He'd swapped his usual cigarette for a cigar he'd rustled up from one of the homes in the area, sending puffs of thick, heavily perfumed smile high above his head. Dugan seemed perfectly at ease as they strolled through the main square, towards the backside of town where the field hospital was set up.

"Who are you going to see?" Asked Bucky after a while.

"Corporal Edward Burton," said Dugan around his cigar. "Got a nasty bullet graze on the leg. He probably could have left the hospital but I think Burty likes the attention the nurses give him."

Bucky snorted in laughter. Raking his fingers through his hair, he squinted in the distance to where he could see the main hospital tent. "Can't say I blame him."

Dugan's lips stretched into a knowing smirk. "I bet you don't. Although for your sake I hope your nurse isn't giving him too much attention."

A hot flush spread over the back of Bucky's neck. The rumor that he and Private Meyers ended up sharing their foxhole with a field nurse had spread like wildfire in the days after that fateful night. For the most part, Bucky received the teasing and good-natured jokes well, taking the time to point out the genuinely bizarre circumstances. Dugan especially enjoyed teasing Bucky about Sadie, having already met her before on the Queen Victoria.

"She's not my anything," said Bucky, wishing he sounded more casual.

Dugan's smirk widened. "Yeah, but you wouldn't mind if she were."

Bucky laughed, mostly to cover up his own discomfort. He'd spent more time than was wise thinking about Sadie Reid, mostly wondering whether she'd gotten herself into more trouble and hoping she'd stayed relatively safe. But, in spite of all the teasing and his own one-track mind, Bucky was particularly hesitant to open up about Sadie for a multitude of reasons. For one, they'd only been around each other three times and barely knew each other. Bucky didn't even know where Sadie was from, how could be possibly have romantic designs towards her? More than that, Bucky felt uncomfortable talking to anyone but Steve about women. He'd had his fair share of romantic endeavors, but Bucky had never been a kiss and tell sort. But Steve never pressed for more details than Bucky was willing to give and Steve always talked about women with respect, a rarity among men Bucky was beginning to understand.

Dugan wasn't bad to talk to, he certainly didn't make the same disparaging comments the others made. But still, he wasn't Steve. "Nurse Reid is smart and beautiful. I'd think most men wouldn't mind being on her arm," said Bucky cautiously.

Dugan's shoulders shook with laughter and he clapped Bucky so hard on the shoulder it knocked the air from his lungs. "A political answer if I ever heard one. But I salute you, not many guys could spend a night in a foxhole with a gorgeous nurse and not announce it to the whole damn army."

It was Bucky's turn to laugh. "Sure, until word got back to said nurse. I'd hate to be the wounded guy who ends up on any nurse's bad side."

"Wise man," teased Dugan as they ducked under the large tent flap, into the main hospital tent.

Bucky and Dugan ground to a stop, taking in the sight. The 80th Field Hospital's main tent stretched down a flat patch of earth. Four massive tent poles ran through the center lane, supporting the heavy canvas. Bucky noticed with surprise that clouds of mosquito netting hung everywhere, covering each bed and the entrances. Cots lined each side of the tent, most of them occupied by soldiers.

Before either man could do anything, a decidedly feminine voice interrupted them. "How can I help you Sergeants?"

A petite red head had stopped in front of them. Like all nurses with the field hospital, she wore the same olive drab field uniform as the men. A large white band wrapped around her right bicep, bearing the red circle and white cross. All of her burnished red hair was curled and pinned away, revealing pale ivory skin and brilliant blue eyes. Bucky cast a sideways glance to his companion; Dugan was usually the first to speak. Instead, the Boston Irishman was staring slightly open-mouthed at her.

"Yes," said Bucky, swallowing his laughter. "We're both here to see men in our rifle squads."

Immediately, the nurse's slightly suspicious countenance brightened. "Sure, who are you here to see?"

"Private Anselm Miller," said Bucky.

"Corporal Edward Burton," said Dugan after a painfully long second.

"Let's see, Private Miller is one of Nurse Ratton's patients, he's down near the end on the left hand row. And Corporal Burton is one of mine, I'll take you to him Sergeant," her clear, musical voice faltered.

"Dugan, ma'am, Timothy Dugan," said Dugan, tipping his head.

Her smile brightened. "Nurse Evelyn Lewis. Come with me." Without further ado, she marched Dugan away from Bucky, out of the tent and towards another ward. Left to his own devices, Bucky wandered down the aisle until he found Private Anselm Miller sitting on his cot, pouring over a letter. His mousy brown hair swept jauntily in a widow's peak over his high forehead and he gave Bucky a mile-wide grin as soon as he saw him.

"Sarge!" He said happily.

"Hey Miller," said Bucky. A small footstool sat next to the cot and Bucky took a seat, stretching one of his booted feet out in front of him. "How's the arm doing?"

"Hurts like hell, but I'll be fine in a couple more days. I'm not going to let you all go to Salerno without me."

Bucky smirked. "That's what I like to hear."

The two men fell into easy conversation. Bucky caught Miller up on what he'd missed, on the landing at Salerno and the SSR, which had been a hot topic of conversation. Miller was a college boy, having left volunteered during his freshman year at Stanford. Well spoken, he made for a good conversational partner and reminded Bucky a bit of Steve, which he liked. Together they watched traffic wind through the hospital tent and Miller kept up a running commentary on all the people he'd met over the past few days. Bucky remained entertained and then the tent flap opened and two women entered.

"That's Nurse Carnahan and Nurse Reid," said Miller. "They're not in this ward too often, I think they've been dealing with the malaria patients."

Bucky had ceased to hear a word after that. His eyes fell on Sadie who had paused at a makeshift counter a few beds away from Miller's. She was much the same as the last time he'd seen her, but there was something different about her still. Perhaps it was the fluid way she spoke with her hands or the fact that she was beaming at her friend, a blonde Bucky vaguely remembered seeing at the NYPOE. Sadie was entirely relaxed, resting her hip against the counter.

"Bucky?" Miller's voice echoed in the back of Bucky's head. He started to turn his head back to Miller at the same moment Sadie looked up to take stock of the main tent. Bucky was just in time to see Sadie's gaze fall on him and her lips part in soft surprise. His stomach flipped over when that surprise morphed into a small smile, her eyes warming at the sight of him.

"Yeah?" He asked, absently.

"Never mind," said Miller suddenly and Bucky heard the amusement dancing in Miller's voice. "You know I think it's about that time of day for a shift change."

Sadie had pulled her attention away from Bucky, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. And then, suddenly, Sadie left her companion, ducking out of the tent.

"You should go, sir," said Miller. Bucky's attention switched back to the wounded man. "I think I've bothered you long enough."

Bucky was vaguely aware of saying goodbye to Private Miller and ducking out of the tent. He looked around for a couple of seconds before he spotted Sadie walking away from the hospital tents, helmet under her arm. Breaking into a light jog, he waited until she was close enough that he didn't have to shout.

"Sadie!"

She pulled up short and took a step back so she could pivot. Dark eyebrows rose just a fraction and her shoulders tensed until she recognized him and relaxed. "Good evening, buck sergeant," she said, a tiny smile playing at her pink lips.

Sadie waited until Bucky caught up to her. "Are you getting off your shift?"

"Yes," she said, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun. "What brings you to this corner of Messina?"

"Dropping in on one of the privates in my rifle squad. Private Miller."

Sadie made a face. "I don't know him. But I've been in the malaria ward, so I suppose that stands to reason."

Both of them shifted uncomfortably and for the first time in his life, Bucky had no idea what to say to a woman. Sadie disarmed him in a way he'd never expected. "Are you headed to the mess for dinner? Because I was headed to the mess." Bucky winced internally as the words came out rushed.

Sadie made a face and shook her head. "I just spent the last twelve hours tending to malaria patients and cleaning up vomit, food is the last thing on my mind, buck sergeant. I'm just going to take a walk and get some fresh air." Bucky's stomach sank. Sadie jerked her head towards the tree line. "You're welcome to join if you like."

Bucky didn't need any further cajoling. Together the fell into easy step and walked in comfortable silence for a while. Every so often he stole a quick glance at her, trying to memorize her profile. At length her voice drifted into his ears on the warm evening air. "You did a good thing, coming to visit your rifleman." When he didn't immediately say anything, she plowed on. "Some of those kids come in wounded and they just lay there alone, sometimes for days on end. Knowing that their superiors care about them can go a long way to helping them recover."

The compliment slithered into Bucky's chest and set a small fire ablaze. The heat expanded, filling him with an unfamiliar comfort. "Miller is a good guy. They're all good guys and I don't imagine spending all day in the hospital is much fun."

"It's not," said Sadie. "There's only so much we can do when a man is injured and missing home."

"You all do more than you think. I've got it on good authority that you're a godsend," said Bucky.

Sadie laughed. "How is Private Meyers doing these days?"

"Still singing your praises," said Bucky daring to look at her. "I'm pretty sure his parents have built a small shrine in your honor all the way in Eugene, Oregon."

She shook her dark head and shoved her hands in the pockets of her pants. "He's a piece of work, but I'm glad he's alright. You too," she added as an afterthought. "You've been doing alright?"

Bucky shrugged. "As well as I can out here. Ready to get to the mainland just to get away from the heat."

She slumped comically in agreement with a groan. "You have no idea. Some days I'm half tempted to steal a flamethrower from the armory just so I can burn every mosquito on this island. I thought treating wounded men could be rough but it's got nothing on malaria."

So far, Bucky had been exceedingly lucky to escape that particular scourge. "Now there's an image I'd like to see," he teased. "You with a flamethrower."

Sadie chuckled in agreement and at his insistence, began telling him some of the misadventures at the hospital. As they walked the sun continued to sink and Bucky couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a good conversation with a woman. He'd never really had friends of the opposite sex before. Most of his interactions with women were either with family or with girls he wanted to date or friends of his dates. But the longer he talked to Sadie, the more he realized that she'd become his friend. Once their conversation got going talking to Sadie was almost as easy as talking to Steve.

Their conversation turned several different corners until Bucky found himself taking another guess at her home state.

"Tennessee?"

Sadie shook her head. "Close, but no cigar," she replied. Bucky pretended to snap his fingers in disappointment, but he didn't really mind, he was beginning to enjoy their little game. "What was it like? Growing up in Brooklyn?"

"I loved it," said Bucky honestly. "I lived in a small apartment with my family and everyone else I knew was either in the same building or on the same block. Everything you need is right there: the grocers, butchers, clothes, diners, pubs. There was an empty lot one block over where I'd play baseball with my friends."

"It sounds suffocating to me, being that close to so many people."

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. He noticed that they'd made a large loop in their tracks and the hospital tents were coming back into view. "You don't really notice it when you live there. I liked having people right across the hall and being able to walk everywhere. There's always something different going on at each street corner. My best friend and I used to camp out on his stoop just to watch the foot traffic going by."

"Your best friend?" Sadie asked.

Bucky realized with a particularly painful jolt in his stomach that it was the first time he'd talked about Steve. "Yeah," he said in a suddenly distant voice.

Sadie must have realized that Bucky didn't want to talk about Steve because she immediately brushed the topic off. He was immeasurably grateful when she volunteered new information about himself, allowing his mind to drift to better places. "I'd never been to New York until the army sent me there. I grew up with wide open spaces and the nearest neighbor was nearly half a mile away."

"I'll bet New York was an eye-opener."

"Something like that. I didn't get to see everything I wanted to."

"Like what?"

"I'd like to go to the museums and see the Empire State Building. I've heard that there are some pretty walks along the Hudson where you can see the Statue of Liberty."

Bucky's mind wandered familiar streets and routes. "All worth doing," he said. He'd never been to any of the museums other than the museum of natural history, where he'd gone on a school trip. "But to really experience the city, you should see it with someone who knows where to go."

"Oh? I suppose you have a tour guide in mind for me?"

Bucky grinned at her, earning a playful smile in return. "As a matter of fact, I do."

They'd reached the tents at the field hospital again and stopped. Sadie turned to face Bucky, her bright grey eyes evaluating him carefully. "I don't know, buck sergeant. What do you know about classic art?"

"Not a thing," he admitted with a half-laugh. "But I'd be happy to make a bunch of stuff up."

"Tempting, but I think I'll stick with a certified tour guide," she joked. Bucky felt the warmth in his chest spread to his stomach, moving lazily into the tips of his fingers and toes. Nerves along the surface of his skin tingled and Bucky found himself wishing he possessed the courage to reach out and sweep an errant lock of hair from her forehead. His stomach turned in an uncomfortable knot as his eyes traveled from her eyes to her warm smile, in particular her full petal pink lips that suddenly Bucky imagined kissing. Sadie had the kind of lips he could spend hours drinking from and still be thirsty. Bucky wanted to bury his fingers in her dark hair and feel her arms wrapped around him. She was unlike the women he'd known in Brooklyn. There was a toughness to Sadie, tempered by her southern charm and classic looks. Bucky couldn't quite explain it, but he couldn't get enough of it and he realized that just maybe Dugan had been right earlier. Sadie was now his friend, but he certainly wouldn't mind if she were more.

"Your loss," he replied and then tilted his head to over her shoulder where Nurse Evelyn Lewis was trudging towards them. "I believe my relief is here."

"Yeah," said Sadie and for a moment Bucky was certain her heard a wistful note in her voice. "Thanks for the company, buck sergeant. Maybe I'll bump into you again before the 107th heads for Salerno."

"I hope so," he said earnestly. "Always a pleasure, Nurse Reid."

Bucky walked away and paused only once to look over his shoulder. He did not see Sadie do the same thing.

X X X

Two days later Sadie squinted into the misty morning. Her musette bag and gear lay at her feet, her helmet resting atop the pile. Evelyn and Betty stood with her, trading a few words as they watched the spectacle unfolding before them. Sadie, Evelyn, Betty and the rest of the 80th field hospital stood on the beach outside of Messina, watching as the landing craft carrying the 107th disembarked from Sicily. Airplanes roared overhead, some destined to provide air support and take out as many German guns as they could on their run. Other planes carried airborne infantry who would be jumping into key points to help link up the smaller towns on either side of Salerno.

In twelve hours, the 80th field hospital would be boarding landing craft to take the same journey. The doctors, nurses, and staff would have to clamber up the beachhead and set up the hospital on the first patch of solid ground they could find in order to receive wave after wave. They'd all been told to prepare for heavy casualties and wounds the likes of which they hadn't seen yet. The mere thought caused Sadie's stomach to turn and her lungs tightened with each breath. They'd gotten off relatively easy in Sicily, but now the real work was coming, something all the women had known from the start.

"Sade? Do you have an extra pair of scissors? Ruthie can't find hers." Sadie swiveled her gaze away form the departing landing craft to Betty and the woman who stood next to her. Ruthie Lafferty was a round-faced, somewhat forgetful nurse who also happened to have a never-ending supply of kindness and patience. Sadie often envied Ruthie's ability to handle the foulest of tempers from soldiers.

"Yeah," said Sadie and she knelt down, opening her pack. She dug around for a moment before she produced the second of her two pairs of scissors.

"Thanks," said Ruthie, her Minnesota accent as heavy as ever. "I'dve been up a creek!"

Sadie gave Ruthie half of a friendly smile and then returned her gaze to the sea, watching as the craft eventually disappeared into the horizon. "What do you think it's going to be like when we get there?"

Evelyn's question hung uncomfortably between the four women. "I think the girls who think that Sicily was bad haven't seen anything yet," said Sadie darkly. "I think the Nazis are just waiting to show us their worst."

"Gee, Sade, you're a regular ray of sunshine aren't you?" Betty said. The blonde stood, trying to fix a pin that held her finger curls together. Her frustration was evident on her pretty face, lips twisted in a scowl. "God it's useless," she said puling the pin and tossing it on the ground angrily. "I swear when we get to New York the first thing I'm going to do is find the most expensive salon and I'm not leaving until they fix all of this damage."

Betty gestured to her face and hair. Evelyn and Sadie shared a knowing look. "It's not that bad, Betty. All you'll need is a trim and a fresh set of curls, then you'll be good to go!"

"Yeah that and a manicure, a pedicure, a facial, all new makeup, and a brand new face while we're at it!" Complained Betty.

Ruthie's eyebrows flew up, unused to Betty's regular habit of decrying her pin-up looks. "I swear, Betty if I had a quarter for every time you complained I'd be a rich woman," said Sadie with a wink to Ruthie who grinned back.

"Well, at any rate I'd commit murder for some lipstick," said Betty unhappily.

Evelyn straightened, as if a thought had just occurred to her. "Speaking of lipstick, have you all seen the woman whose been going around with that Science Reserve unit?"

Sadie shook her head along with Ruthie. "Nope, Ruthie and I have been basically quarantined in the malaria unit since we got to Messina."

"I have," said Betty. "The brunette? Always has her hair done and makeup?"

"Yeah," said Evelyn. "Well, I was talking to Doctor Holmes yesterday while we did rounds and he told me that she's with something called the SSR and they're going to be traveling with us over the next few months. They're all over there," she said pointing over Sadie's shoulder.

A group of uniformed individuals had started loading one of the landing craft that remained for the field hospital. From far away, Sadie could see that almost all of the workers were men, but then she saw the topic of conversation. A brunette woman oversaw the loading of several crates. Sadie couldn't see any detail in her face from so far away.

"So, what's the big deal?" Asked Sadie.

"Apparently the SSR is some military research division that pulls talent from all over the world. Doc Holmes was telling me that not only are the people with us staying but that they work closely with Howard Stark."

The mere mention of Howard Stark's caused a wave of excitement to roll through Betty, Evelyn, and Ruthie. Sadie crossed her arms over her chest. She understood the fascination with his professional career and innovative thinking, but Sadie had never found him attractive the way her friends did. "You're kidding," said Betty, flushing pink. "Wouldn't that be something? Howard Stark coming here."

The girls continued to gossip about Howard Stark and his pictures in the newspapers. Sadie half-listened as she watched the SSR continue their operations. In a little while they would be loading their own gear onto the landing crafts. Sadie dug a chain from beneath her uniform shirt and began rubbing her father's wedding ring anxiously. How did research units, red lipstick, and Howard Stark really compare to what was facing them? Soon enough the 107th would land on the beachhead and their work would begin again.

Sadie smiled as Betty started imitating Howard Stark's stage girls, mimicking them showing off his latest products. She would give anything to arrive at Salerno only to find that there were no casualties. That way she could spend her time listening to Betty and Evelyn speculate about whether Stark was a good kisser and if he really sent his one of his assistants call his dates ahead of time to confirm the itinerary and dress code. Absently, Sadie wondered where Bucky normally took his dates and if he always called ahead of time to confirm plans. She thought about his offer to take her to New York's art museums and to make up ridiculous facts about the paintings. Laughter bubbled up in her throat and she narrowly kept it down, smiling to herself all the same. Maybe, just maybe if they lived through the war, she'd take him up on his offer.

The thought kept Sadie entertained for a while longer, a pleasant diversion from the hell that was sure to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I hope that you enjoy this story. Full disclosure, it is complete, it is mammoth, and I will be posting chapters regularly! Extra love to Sushifish who is my beta and who fixed the tags on this because I'm still trying to figure it all out! I would love to know what you think! Much love - Kappa.


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